


The Fraternity

by atropabelladonna1120



Category: Sherlock (TV), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cold War, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:52:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 79,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atropabelladonna1120/pseuds/atropabelladonna1120
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the incident at the pool, Mycroft Holmes decides that drastic measures are needed to protect his brother from James Moriarty. He calls on the one man he knows he can trust completely. Sherlock (BBC) and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 2011 crossover WIP. AU: It's 2011, but the Cold War hasn't ended. Smiley's factotum, Fawn, is a woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Brother's Keeper

The Minister leans against the wall and stares out the window at the bleary sky, at the clouds hanging fat and heavy over the city. It's that time of year; soon winter will spread itself over London like a thick velvet blanket. He can already feel the chill in his bones.

Or perhaps that has nothing to do with the weather. His gaze skims over the streets and the tops of the buildings across his office and he thinks that somewhere out there is the greatest threat to what he holds dearest. Dearest, yes, even though he'll never admit it. He needs to get a handle on this, to bring this under control before it destroys --

His assistant -- very attractive, dark-haired, a perma-mask of lazy indifference hiding the true extent of her lazy indifference -- clears her throat behind him.

"He's here, Sir."

He straightens up to his full height, smoothes his waistcoat lightly with both hands as if to brush away imaginary wrinkles. There are none, of course, his navy blue pinstripe suit is immaculate as always, but he is careful in the presence of his next visitor as he is with very few other people, including the Prime Minister himself.

"Thank you, Anthea. You may let him in."

Her heels click on the floor as she walks out and he takes a moment or two to compose himself before she comes clicking back in.

"Mr. Smiley, Sir," she announces.

"Thank you, Anthea."

He hears his visitor's gently mumbled "Thank you" and waits for his assistant's clicking to fade away before he fixes his pleasant politician's smile on his face and turns around.

"George," he says, allowing the smile to take up only the bottom half of his face. "So very good of you to come."

George Smiley in a brown coat, looking like a crumpled paper sack with eyeglasses and a briefcase.

"Minister," he says in that quiet, quiet voice, pitched at a level that Mycroft Holmes imagines only dogs and very alert humans can hear. "Always glad to be of help."

Mycroft notices the subtle implication in the word "help", instead of the usual "service". It's entirely correct, of course, he does need Smiley's help and because this is a matter both extremely sensitive and intensely personal, he can't be issuing orders; Smiley has to cooperate of his own free will.

"George, I can't tell you how grateful I am --"

Smiley holds up a hand. "It would be best to discuss the mechanics of the operation at once."

Mycroft simultaneously feels annoyance and relief. He has always wondered how it is possible for someone to be both undeniably brilliant and unutterably dull at the same time, and yet here is George Smiley, two objects occupying the same space at the same time, defying the laws of physics.

"Of course, George. Please, let's sit down." Mycroft motions toward the soft beige couches in the centre of the room.

There's a knock on the door just as the two men settle themselves on opposite couches, facing each other, and Anthea pokes her head in, the barest lift of an eyebrow and Mycroft nods. She holds the door open and a middle-aged man rolls in a small trolley with tea and sandwiches. Everyone waits in silence as he lays the refreshments out on the table between Mycroft and Smiley. Everyone knows some tea may be drunk but the sandwiches will wither away and die without being touched.

When they're alone again, Mycroft, ever the genial host, pours his guest a cup of tea which is gratefully accepted. He pours himself a cup as well and the two men drink without saying a word.

It is Smiley who speaks first after carefully laying down his teacup and saucer on the table.

"I have been thinking, and it seems to me that the best approach would be to not let your brother know that he is being followed."

Mycroft frowns. "But he already knows that he is always being followed."

"By your people," Smiley nods. "Not by mine."

Mycroft had hoped that Smiley would suggest a quick, clean, and indefinite sequestration; at least that's how he himself would have done it. Now he is dismayed in no small measure that Smiley appears to be proposing quite the opposite: to let his brother continue as he always has, exposing himself to the dangers of ... His face wrinkles in disgust.

Smiley has remained very still throughout Mycroft's private musings. Now he adjusts the spectacles on the bridge of his nose and leans forward. "Minister, if we were to hold your brother indefinitely so soon after the incident, it is very likely that he would try to escape -- in fact, succeed in escaping. There would be no telling then what he would try to do. It is very likely that he would become even more ... reckless, and endanger himself further."

Mycroft chews on this a long moment, but he can't deny that Smiley is right. He's annoyed with himself that he's allowed his usual flawless logic and cold pragmatism to be compromised by this overweening concern for his brother. But after what happened at the pool, he no longer trusts his instincts where his brother's welfare is concerned.

Still, he feels a need to put up some kind of resistance, to advocate his own desire to just shut his brother away where he can be completely safe from this dreadful business.

"So we simply allow him to run amuck all over London, then? Chase down the man who nearly killed him, and left his best friend in a coma?"

George Smiley, sad and sensible and oh so very still. "I think you and I both know it's not nearly as simple as all that."

Mycroft takes a deep breath, holds it several beats longer than necessary, then exhales. "Very well, George. Do what you think is right. But I need your assurance that you will employ only your very best people in this undertaking."

Smiley nods. "That goes without saying, Sir."

 

Smiley hears the Citroën hum into the driveway as he is puttering in his tiny garden, the slam of the car door and footsteps coming up the path. Without turning around, he says, "Good morning, Peter."

"George," Peter Guillam says.

"I have half a mind to scrap all the cyclamen, Peter," Smiley says, rising from his low crouch beside the scraggly flower bed with a groan. "Maybe I'll have better luck with parsnips."

Peter surveys the sickly patch of cyclamen with mild distaste. "Parsnips, definitely. Winter coming and all."

Smiley chuckles. "Ah, young Peter. Ever the romantic." He puts a hand out, his legs slightly unsteady from having been in a crouching position for so long. Peter quickly stretches out an arm to support him. Slowly they begin to walk toward the house, the back door leading into the kitchen.

Once inside, Smiley puts a kettle on the stove. "Or would you prefer something stronger?" he asks Peter, following an unspoken question with a spoken one.

Peter shakes his head, tea will do. They don't say a word and Smiley busies himself with teacups and saucers, a pack of biscuits. Peter looks out the kitchen window, watchful as always, old habits die hard.

The tea is ready, poured into cups, heavily sugared in Smiley's and plain in Peter's.

"The young man seems to be oblivious to the danger he's in," Smiley finally says.

Peter sits back, looking annoyed. "He's a Holmes, of course he would think himself immune to -- George, why do we have to do this? Isn't standard protection sufficient?"

Smiley shakes his head. "The boy is in much deeper trouble than that, I'm afraid. The man at the pool is ... shall we say, well-connected. To Beijing. To Hanoi. To Moscow."

At that last word, Peter starts. "You can't possibly be serious."

Smiley nods.

"But he's a local player, isn't he? Admittedly a brilliant one, but certainly not one with that kind of reach, surely?"

"He's been diversifying, I'm afraid." Smiley removes his spectacles, cleans the lenses slowly with the edge of his jumper. "The older Holmes has received very disturbing reports from his own contacts overseas. Arms shipments, funds transfers, all conducted at the very highest levels. The boy only saw the tip of the iceberg. And now with his friend in a coma -- his only friend, apparently -- the Minister is deeply concerned that he might do something rash."

Peter snorts derisively. "From what I gather, the 'boy' is incapable of doing anything that can't be described as rash." He sets his teacup and saucer back on the table. "And you can stop calling him a boy, by the way. He's only a little bit younger than I am."

The older man smiles gently. He doesn't say that he still thinks of Peter as a boy. Right at this moment, all shining blonde head and sneering petulance, he is very much an overgrown boy in a bespoke three-piece suit.

"I trust you'll make the arrangements?" Smiley asks, quietly but firmly.

Peter, exquisitely peeved, kicks his right foot out, connecting with nothing. "It's called Scalphunters, George. Not Babysitters."


	2. A Gathering of Ciphers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George Smiley must assemble the team that will undertake the delicate, dangerous mission of protecting Sherlock Holmes from an unseen enemy -- and, quite possibly, from himself.

George Smiley is poring over a sheaf of yellowed papers at his desk when he feels the air change in the room. “The hinges on that door always squeak,” he says, without looking up.

There it is, the answering quiet that makes up most of Fawn’s side of any conversation.

“And yet somehow they never squeak when you open it.” He shuffles the papers together and lays them on his desk. “How is that possible, hmmm?”

Fawn merely stands at the door, hands clasped behind her, motionless and perfectly composed. She is around 5”5, dark clothes and black unblinking eyes and glossy black hair, streamlined like a wet eel with nothing sticking out, neither elbow nor knee nor hair, aerodynamic like a bullet. If one looks close enough, or knows what one is looking for, they can see the gymnast she used to be in the line of her neck when she stands and the cat-like, light-footed way she walks, leading ever so slightly with an gently upturned chin and an invisible wire threaded taut through her spine.

“I take it Peter has had a word with you.”

Silence.

“I cannot say for certain how long this will take.”

This time her silence is a question.

“I will be all right, of course. At the moment, I am in no great danger from anything other than the accounting department, what with Alleline’s and Haydon’s creative book-keeping.” Smiley chuckles. “It is possible that I will be ledgered to death, but protecting me from that would be a disastrous waste of your talents.”

Another silence, another question.

“Peter will need you immediately. Today, in fact. The sooner we wrap up this business, the sooner you can come back.”

She accepts without a word, takes a small step back. It’s Smiley’s signal to dismiss her.

“Well, off you go, then.” He rises from his chair, joints cracking. He smiles ruefully at her. “I know you heard that, my dear. You hear everything.”

She opens the door like everyone else does, but of course she doesn’t open the door just like everyone else; it’s a turn of her wrist, perhaps, or a minute adjustment in her grasp of the doorknob. The hinges don’t make a single sound.

When she’s gone, Smiley walks up to the door and opens it. It squeaks like a warped fiddle. He makes a note to himself to remind the janitors to oil the hinges.

 

Peter comes into the hall of his flat and he immediately senses from the indoor temperature -- nearly as chilly as it is outside -- that someone else is there. He lays his briefcase on the console in the hall -- but not before taking his handgun out of it -- and moves slowly toward the living room. A window that he was certain he had left closed this morning is now open, curtain billowing in the cold wind. Quick scan of the study to the left, empty; glance at the window ledge, no discernible traces of dirt.

He inches toward the kitchen. Movement there. He raises the gun, steadies his aim.

Fawn leaning against the kitchen counter, staring at him with those crude-oil eyes as she drinks water from one of his glasses.

"Christ, Fawn, you'll be the death of me someday."

She drains the glass, sets it down carefully on the counter, watches without a word as he lays the gun a few inches away from it.

He doesn't bother to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "You know, you could always telephone ahead and tell me that you're coming. I would have let you in. Oh, and by the way? Careless of you to have left the window open, old girl. Are you slipping?"

Almost as soon as the question is out of his mouth, he realises the answer. She had meant for him to know that someone else was in his flat; she knew he was expecting her; she expected him to know it was her. He strips off his coat and dumps it unceremoniously on the counter together with the glass and the gun. He stabs the air with a forefinger, its trajectory aimed straight at her face. "And if you've busted the lock on my window, you're paying for it."

Fawn takes the glass, turns toward the sink and draws water from the tap. She turns back to him and offers him the glass, two-handed. Taken aback, he finds himself trying to suppress a smile. Sometimes Fawn is like a child, with a child's capacity for clearly reading a situation, a child's eagerness to please, a child's blind loyalty, especially to Smiley.

But Peter has also seen her display a child's casual cruelty, and there's nothing childlike about the cold, unerring precision with which she uses her skills. He has a theory that she rarely talks because it takes up too much energy, energy that she stores coiled at maximum tension in her small, spare frame, ready to be unleashed like a lightning storm when needed.

He takes the glass and drinks. When he's done, he asks, "Did you bring your gear?" Silence nearly always means yes. He sighs. "I'm going to shower and change first. I trust you can amuse yourself for fifteen minutes?"

She glances in the direction of the study.

"Yes," he says, "you can catch up on your reading there."

Peter's study is quietly tasteful, soft lighting and gleaming wood and richly-coloured leather, a world apart from the drab grays and muted browns, the scratchy mohair and hard metallic edges of the offices at the Circus. Fawn runs a finger along the edge of Peter's desk and resists the almost primal urge to spring up and perch on top of it. She takes her notebook out of her backpack, turns it on, skims quickly through the files until she finds the one she's looking for.

The man they will be watching is close to Peter's age, long and lean, dark curls and pale skin. She will not be told who he is. As with most of her assignments, it's all need-to-know; and it's been decided at levels above her that all she needs to know is what he looks like and that he is in danger and he must be protected at all costs. Of course, that need-to-know nonsense has never sat well with her, so she has searched and researched and hacked her way toward compiling her own full dossier on him.

So. Sherlock Holmes. Consulting detective (invented title, arrogant and quaint at the same time). Brother of a cabinet minister (ah, there you go). Resident at 221B Baker Street with a John Watson, former army doctor. Involved several days ago in a blast at a public swimming pool. Holmes injured but recovering, the good doctor unconscious in hospital. Apparently targeted by one James Moriarty.

Reading the name again always sends a chill rippling through her blood.

But she's not supposed to know; on this particular chessboard, she's muscle, not brains, so she keeps her mouth shut and plays her role and watches and waits like she's told to do.

In Peter's bathroom, the shower has been turned off and she quickly shuts down the notebook, stuffing it into her backpack. She checks its contents again, obsessive about the readiness and condition of the tools of her trade. There is more in the trunk of the car, but those too have been checked and re-checked with a thoroughness bordering on compulsion.

From the sounds in Peter's bedroom, she can tell that he is hurriedly dressing. He will abandon his beautiful three-piece suits and lovely ties for something blokey, jeans and a plain shirt, a warm but nondescript jacket and some clunky utilitarian boots. The thing about Peter is that he doesn't like to be above it all, issuing orders from behind a desk; he has the posh schoolboy's appetite for the dirty and dangerous, although his tastes do not run to orgies or cocaine. He wants the grit and the adrenaline buzz of being right in the thick of the fray.

Somehow she thinks he and this Sherlock Holmes are cut from the same cloth.

She is ready when he comes to the door of the study. "Shall we?" he asks, looking so very different from the Peter Guillam she sees nearly every day. She glides past him like she's hydroplaning, and once again he marvels at her lack of any discernible scent.

Fawn's car is very much like her, a cipher, fastidiously featureless except for a pair of fuzzy yellow dice hanging from the rear-view mirror; complete featurelessness is in itself a red flag. She sits behind the wheel, looks at him through the mirror instead of directly.

"Ricki will meet us there."

She doesn't even nod, just starts the car and pushes off. In half an hour they'll be at a safe distance outside the hospital where John Watson is confined. Peter will brief them for less than five minutes -- everyone knows their roles so well by now, a lengthy briefing is unnecessary -- and they will go their separate ways.

Fawn will finally get to fly again.


	3. The Night Watch

There is a lump on the bed that is swathed in bandages, with tubes snaking in and out where the head and chest should be. This is John Watson.

There is a tall, slender figure in the shadows in one corner of the hospital room. This is Sherlock Holmes. He has been standing motionless here for nearly an hour. He gave the night nurse a good scare – she hadn’t noticed him until she was on her way out and she yelped in fright. His only response had been to put a finger to his lips.

His mobile phone vibrates with a text alert in his coat pocket. He ignores it the first time. And the second. The third time he deigns to draw it out and check the message.

_It’s late. M._

He sighs the sigh of the long-suffering.

 _It’s early, actually_ , he starts to write, but changes his mind.  

 _Stop hovering_ , he starts again, but again it’s not quite right.

 _I_ –

Before he can key in the letters, the phone vibrates again.

 _I am sending someone to collect you_.

 _I am not a package, Mycroft_ , Sherlock fumes in his mind. 

Instead he types: _That won’t be necessary_.

Almost immediately:  _Neither is exposing yourself to further danger, little brother_.

Hovering, always hovering, Mycroft the stealth helicopter, silently churning the air above London, above this hospital, above this room, above Sherlock.

Moriarty is not stupid, he won’t try again quite so soon. He likes to lay his neat little traps just so, plan meticulously down to the last, tiniest detail, maximise the excitement.

 _I need some air. You can send your wee elves to scuttle after me_.

There is no further response.

Sherlock pockets the phone and then takes a tentative step toward the bed. But he knows there has been no change since the last time he looked at the man lying on it. 

So he turns and walks quietly out the door. He ignores the nods of the two officers standing guard outside and strides down the corridor, into the elevator, through the lobby.

He is dying for a cigarette, but of course he promised he wouldn’t. He turns left, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his coat, walks briskly against the cold wind. 

When he turns the corner, his senses tell him there’s something different here, something – wrong. Not the wrong of imminent danger, but the wrong of a balance disrupted. He’s always been aware of Mycroft’s spies – they’re good but they’ve never been a match for him. In this regard, the surveillance cameras that his brother controls have always been much more useful for tracking the movements of Sherlock Holmes.

In the last few months he’s also become aware of the tails Moriarty has put on him. They, too, are very good – especially the one who looks like he might have been a soldier once. Sherlock’s only seen him once, quick flash on the rooftop of a building, his face obscured by some sort of cap. A marksman, he’s certain.

So these two forces in balance, light and dark, competent but clumsy in their own ways. But now there’s something else, and Sherlock feels the disequilibrium, a third force that he can’t quite place, its presence crackling like static electricity in the air around him

He stops at a traffic light, waiting to cross, taking the opportunity to quickly scan his surroundings. The man chatting up two pretty girls on the opposite side of the street -- Mycroft’s.  Another man, almost completely hidden in the shadows of an alley -- Moriarty’s. The glint off a digital camera in the window of a passing car -- also Moriarty’s. He can see all of them, three on each side, and they’ll leapfrog over each other’s positions as he makes his way to Baker Street.

But this new thing –

What is it? And where are they? Why can’t he see them?

 _Oh, they’re good,_ he thinks to himself _. They’re very, very good_.

 

Peter knows what the younger Holmes looks like from photographs in the newspapers and in classified files. But as he observes him from a distance, he is struck by his loose-limbed physicality, the rhythm in his long strides, his sheer grace. He’s met the older brother, of course, just once; that one appears to be the total opposite, tightly zipped up, completely self-contained.

Sherlock stops at a traffic light and Peter can see him locking on to the people tailing him. He lingers there for a moment longer than necessary after the light changes, almost sniffing the air for the trace of something. For tense seconds Peter thinks he will soon be spotted, but Sherlock’s brow knits in frustration and then he steps off the curb to cross the street. Peter is safe for the moment.

He waits a few minutes and then checks in on Ricki Tarr, who is in position several hundred metres away. “Heading toward you.”

“I have him,” Ricki confirms.

“Spot tails?”

“Two so far.  One hostile.”

“I’ve got two as well. Fawn?”

Fawn is perched on the ledge of a building, 18 stories high. She’s chosen this spot because at this time of night, it’s impossible to make out the features of this side of the building. It’s all bathed in inky shadow, and Fawn doesn’t even need to hide. With her acute sense of balance and her fearlessness at great heights, she is in her element here. From this vantage point, she can see a fairly large swathe of the city, and in particular, the area around 221B Baker Street.

“Six on the ground. Three hostile. A fourth on the rooftop of 211. Sniper.”

It’s always a little jarring to hear Fawn talk, Peter thinks. The voice is always husky from disuse, unexpectedly deep and gravelly. 

His mobile phone beeps, as does Ricki’s; Fawn has sent them photographs of the man on the rooftop.  Peter scowls at the images. “Ah, holy hell.”

Ricky, still on the move, quickly checks his phone. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Ex-SAS. Kicked out over some kind of scandal, I think. Fawn, send this to George. We need to find out everything we can about him.”  Peter starts his car again, ready to pick up from Ricki at his next position.

Fawn sits on her haunches like a gargoyle on the ledge, peering through high-powered binoculars at the man on the rooftop. He is tall, has a thin face with a high forehead. He is watching the street with fierce concentration, unaware that he too is being observed with no less intensity. Even from this distance, even in this pre-dawn darkness, Fawn can see something black and dead in those eyes.

She remembers it only too well.

She does what she’s told and sends Smiley the photographs.

 

Smiley is roused from sleep by the sound of his mobile phone. He reaches over and checks it.

“Dear God.”

He drags himself out from under the covers, bare feet on cold floor, pads softly down the stairs to his study. When he shuts the door, the room becomes completely soundproof, impenetrable by any surveillance. Any communication that enters or leaves this room is masked in layers of encryption.

He fires up his computer, jumps through the Circus’ security hoops and then does a search through its massive database for a man named Sebastian Moran.

After he reads what’s on it, he calls Peter.

“George,” Peter says, still driving.

“Looks like you have your hands full, Peter.”

“So he’s involved with Moriarty now.”

Smiley is silent for a moment. But there’s no point in keeping Peter in the dark.

“It’s far worse than that, my boy. If Moran is there, we have practically confirmed that Moriarty is in bed with Karla.”


	4. "Cabeceo"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes a while, but Sherlock Holmes finally catches the first glimpse of the new players in the ongoing game against Moriarty.
> 
> In the terminology of the Argentinian tango, "cabeceo" is the traditional way of inviting someone to dance.

Two weeks have passed; it's tempting to think things have returned to normal. But Sherlock Holmes is not a man easily tempted.

No, things most certainly have not returned to normal. John remains unconscious in hospital; Moriarty remains at large, hatching God knows what Byzantine plan to ensnare and eliminate Sherlock.

Even more troubling, Mycroft appears to be – distracted. His regular intrusions into Sherlock’s daily routine have dwindled, though to a degree that could be noticed only by his own brother.

And of course there’s the question of the _thing_ – that _something_ he first noticed upon leaving John’s bedside a few weeks before. It has taken this long to even catch a glimpse of one of them, and it’s a testament to how good they are, whoever they are; it’s never taken Sherlock more than a few minutes to read his environment and lock in on anyone shadowing him.

A blonde man, tall, slim. Sherlock saw him only for a few seconds, reflected in one of the glass panels of Shad Sanderson as he spoke to two old men on the opposite side of the street. He wouldn’t even have taken notice if not for the way the man appeared to hold himself in his nondescript clothes, as though he were used to dressing better. Also the hair: it was brushed up and back from his forehead but it lay wrong, the way hair behaves when it’s styled differently from the usual.

Then a postal van came down the street; by the time it had passed, the blonde man was gone.

Sherlock has considered asking Mycroft if he knows anything about this, but ultimately he decides against it. If his brother is involved, it’s best to keep him off balance and in the dark. If not, Mycroft might alert his people and they in turn might blow Sherlock’s chances of finding out who these new players are.

No. He’ll wait. He rather enjoys the challenge.

 

It has been months since Richard left, and Peter is still smarting. He tries to ignore the howling emptiness of the flat; only occasionally does he succeed. Richard was warm and kind and gentle, but for all his gentleness he tore a great big hole in Peter when he left. It’s still there, only just starting to heal around the edges, but still raw and deep at the centre.

And now Peter’s dismayed to find that he has developed a tedious little adolescent crush on a man he’s never even met. A man he's been watching closely for weeks, whose face is now as familiar to him as Richard's.

Well, it’s loneliness, that’s what it is: loneliness and thwarted desire and a yawning _lack_ that aches to be filled. He’s human, after all. Not a thinking machine like the younger Holmes, a machine carried about by long legs and lithe body, looking out at the world – at Peter, from his computer screen -- with eyes a sharp and icy grey, alight with an almost feral intelligence. Involuntarily, Peter touches the computer screen, traces the fine jaw line with the tip of his forefinger.

Peter realises too late that Fawn is standing behind him, too late to switch to the screensaver on his laptop. He quickly tries to calculate how long he's been staring at the photograph, vis-à-vis how long she’s been looking over his shoulder, but fails. He's bloody lost track of the time.

"Jesus, Fawn, when will you ever learn to use the Goddamned door?" he asks, not even trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. "And hasn't anyone ever taught you how rude it is to sneak up on people like that? Were you raised by fucking wolves?"

She moves toward the desk. In one fluid, lightning-fast movement, she's on top of it, perched right at the very edge and on her haunches. She tilts her head to one side, observing him dispassionately. The question is plain to see in her eyes and face, no matter how neutral her expression.

He decides to ignore it. "Your shoes had better be clean," he says, practically slamming his laptop closed. "I don't appreciate you hopping up on my furniture like a trained flea." He practically leaps out of his chair, but she doesn't move except to follow him with her eyes. He starts to pace and she remains silent.

"I don't like this, that's all. This waiting is getting on my nerves. And it's only a matter of time before he notices."

Fawn exhales loudly enough for Peter to hear and he turns around sharply. "Christ. You think he already has," he says.

She nods.

"Well, how do you know?" he demands, his voice rising angrily. He strides toward her, pushing his face close to hers. "Was it you? Have you been careless?" The last word comes out as a venomous hiss.

She lowers her eyes. At this moment she feels a surge of compassion for him, something she can neither explain nor express. But she can read him, read the signs, and she knows he's in a dangerous place right now. She reaches out tentatively to touch his arm, but he shrugs her hand off.

"You think it's me. You think he's seen me." He's bristling like an enraged porcupine, invisible quills aimed straight at her. "Well, fuck you. You're wrong. I've been careful, I know my job. So you just ---"

"Yesterday," she says gently. "Bank."

The word is barely out of her mouth when Peter remembers: he had been following Sherlock at a safe distance and was about to duck into an alley when he found his path obstructed by two elderly men. He very nearly crashed into one of them, and he did knock the cane out of the old man's hand. He apologised but the other man started berating him loudly.

Across the street several metres away, Sherlock did not appear to have noticed anything. Peter was relieved when Ricki drove down the street in a postal van, creating a diversion, a visual barrier between Peter and his quarry.

It is only now that he realises that he had not given the order for Ricki to do this.

"I see. It was you. You told Ricki to move in."

She nods.

"And you did it because you think he saw me."

"Glass walls." The Shad Sanderson Bank was a monolith of glass; it was very possible that the commotion with the two old men had been reflected on one of its walls, and discreetly observed by the consulting detective.

Peter turns away in disgust, mostly at himself. "Why didn't you say anything? Why wait until now?"

She tilts her head to the other side. She's been a field agent for over a decade; she knows what it's like to have your confidence shaken, how it can affect your performance in an operation.

"Oh, I see. You were being kind." His tone is bitter, mocking. "Being nice to the boss, is that what it was? I'm not a child, Fawn, and I don't enjoy being patronised."

There is a cough at the door, and they both turn. It's Ricki.

"I knocked, Mr. Guillam," he says. He looks uncomfortable, knows he’s interrupted something unpleasant.

"Oh, what the hell," Peter says crossly. "Come on in, join the party. Fawn here has been telling me that I've fucked up royally, haven't you, Fawn? Come now, tell Ricki, don't be shy, there's a good girl."

Ricki looks at Fawn, a little lost, holding both hands open as though bearing unseen question marks. Fawn gives him a barely perceptible shake of her head. She turns once more to Peter, who is standing at the window with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. It's evident from the set of his shoulders and the line of his back that he's furious; Fawn knows it's with himself, but accepts without complaint that it will be directed, at least outwardly, at least for now, at her. She has learned through the years not to take such things personally, to focus on the essentials.

"It will not be long before he picks the rest of us out."

"Well, he won't pick you out, will he? You'll be high up in the clouds, looming over the rest of us mere mortals."

She glances back at Ricki, who still looks utterly lost.

"It's a setback, but it wasn't your fault."

Peter whirls around to face her. "Oh, how very gracious of you. Thank you, Fawn. I am deeply touched."

Fawn understands, but there's a limit even to what she is willing to take. She hops off the table and signals to Ricki that they're off.

"Fawn," Peter calls out as she disappears through the door. She reappears, but doesn't re-enter the room.

He takes a deep breath. "I -- "

She puts up a hand to stop him. "Don't get attached, Mr. Guillam."

She's gone before he can think of a reply.


	5. Unnecessary Risks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft Holmes begins to understand the true extent of the danger his younger brother is in, while Peter Guillam gives in to an increasingly dangerous impulse.

George Smiley sits in the waiting room of Mycroft Holmes’ office. It is a wet day, and he has again forgotten his umbrella. His shoes are wet and his toes are cold. He feels ill at ease in these quietly opulent surroundings.

The young woman who serves as the secretary’s aide clacks efficiently in her high heels toward him.

“He’ll see you now, Mr. Smiley.”

Smiley pulls himself out of the too-soft chair, glances back with a frown at the moist indentation he has left in the leather seat. His coat is damp. He’ll leave an even worse imprint on the damask sofas in Mycroft’s office.

Mycroft is at his usual place by the windows, staring out at the city.

“George,” he says, without looking at him.

“Mr. Holmes,” Smiley answers.

Long fingers gesture vaguely toward the sofas. “Sit down, George. And take off your coat, you’re practically dripping on the carpet. We don’t want you to catch your death of cold.”

Smiley is no longer surprised that the man can tell the state of his clothes without so much as a glance at him. He does as he is told, looking around for someplace to lay the damp coat.

“The table is fine, George, it’s just a coat.”

Smiley looks up – Mycroft’s back remains turned toward him, and at this angle, in this light, it would be impossible to see Smiley’s reflection in the window. _That old black magic Mycroft weaves so well._

Smiley lays the wet coat upon the table and begins digging through his briefcase for papers. He lays those down beside the coat and waits.

Long minutes pass before Mycroft turns away from the window at last and speaks. “You have some news.”

Smiley adjusts the spectacles on the bridge of his nose before opening the folder on the table. “You’ve heard, of course, of Operation Witchcraft?”

“Of course. A horrendous embarrassment. You mopped up the entire mess.”

Smiley nods. “The Soviets were feeding us low-grade information the whole time. Swill. Most of it we could have gotten anyway through other channels. But they let a few minor things slip through – just enough to keep Alleline salivating.”

Mycroft leans forward. “And?”

Smiley flips to a page with a photograph of a man, late 30s, thin face, piercing blue eyes. “Sebastian Moran. Ex-Special Forces, excellent marksman. He saw active duty in Bosnia, Serbia, Sierra Leone.”

Mycroft reaches out, turns the page toward him. “Hmmm. Yes. There was something – dishonourable discharge? Running a gambling operation and brothel in Tbilisi?”

“Yes. He’s been on the run for years, but months before he disappeared, he was regularly seen in the company of this man.” Smiley draws out another page with another photograph. “Yevgeny Annikov.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrow as the name registers. “The Olympic gymnastics coach? Why?”

Smiley looks at Mycroft. “Annikov was banned from ever taking part again in any international competition more than 15 years ago. The rumour was that he was supplying young women – the very athletes he was coaching – to very important clients in the Soviet hierarchy.”

Mycroft digests this for a moment, then asks: “What does any of this have to do with my brother and James Moriarty?”

Smiley now takes another set of pages from the folder: they’re the photographs that Fawn took of the sniper on the rooftop of 211 Baker Street. “These were taken two weeks ago by a Circus agent who was monitoring developments at Baker Street. Despite the poor lighting and the low quality of the photographs, there can be no question that this man is Sebastian Moran.”

Mycroft leans back, away from the table. He suddenly looks so very tired. He rests his head against the back of the sofa and stares at the ceiling. “And he is now working for James Moriarty.”

The older man clears his throat, and Mycroft can tell he’s preparing to deliver even worse news. “Just come out and say it, George.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes. You see, the reports you’ve received about Moriarty’s involvement with the Soviets have all been inconclusive. Until now.”

Mycroft straightens up immediately. “Why?”

Smiley taps the photograph of the gymnastics coach. “Annikov had a patron. A very powerful patron, one who would have found it incredibly advantageous to back the activities of – well, of a very high-end gambling and prostitution ring.” He searches through the file again until he finds what he is looking for, then lays it on the table, facing Mycroft.

One glance at the picture, and Mycroft pales.

“Oh, God. Oh, dear God, Sherlock,” he whispers, and Smiley can tell that he is genuinely afraid. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

 

It’s well past midnight when Sherlock arrives at the hospital; he’s solved another case for Lestrade – a woman who insisted that her dead husband was trying to kill her. It had been ridiculously simple, but Sherlock needed the distraction.

The first thing he notices when he steps off the elevator is that the two officers who should have been keeping watch at the door of John’s room are not there.

The second thing he notices is the figure of a tall man disappearing down the opposite end of the corridor.

Sherlock breaks into a run, heads straight for John’s room, frantically checks the monitors, inspects the drip. His hands pass quickly over the bandages, over the parts of John’s body that are exposed to the air. Only when he is absolutely certain that John is unharmed does he burst out of the room. The two officers are on their way back with coffee, chatting to each other.

“You bloody idiots,” Sherlock thunders at them. “You left him alone!” He doesn’t wait for a response and dashes down the corridor in the direction where the figure had turned. Down the stairs – he can still hear footsteps echoing in the stairwell, whoever it is, is in a hurry. Sherlock runs as fast as his legs will carry him, down one flight of stairs and onto another.

The stairs end at an emergency exit into the parking garage, and Sherlock pushes straight through, his heart thudding madly in his ears. Tires screech and he runs toward the sound, his blood pumping, his lungs straining. It’s a zippy little Citroën, and he’s too far to see anything but the first two letters of the license plate, _CZ_ \---. But as it turns into the exit, an overhead light floods the interior of the car just so, and Sherlock finally sees him.

 _The blonde man outside Shad Sanderson_.

 

When he returns to John’s room, Lestrade is waiting for him outside.

“I know what you’re going to say,” the detective inspector says.

“That your men are incompetent clowns who would be more useful manning a garbage truck?”

“They’ve been reprimanded.”

“Oh, goody,” Sherlock’s voice, artificially chirpy, yet dripping with acid. “I’m sure we can all sleep better at night knowing their bottoms have been spanked.”

Lestrade is about to say something but he changes his mind. “He’s okay, though. The nurses checked.”

Without another word, Sherlock enters the room. But he suddenly stops, and he holds Lestrade back as he too tries to enter. “Wait right there,” Sherlock says firmly.

He stands in the middle of the room and he seems to be smelling the air. Then he moves closer to John’s bed and he inhales deeply. When he turns to Lestrade, he is smiling broadly.

“Our visitor has expensive tastes.”

 

Peter emerges from the shower, clad only in a towel, running a smaller towel over his wet hair. His heart almost stops when he sees the small, slight figure crouching on top of his dressing table. He obeys the impulse to hurl the towel in his hand at her. It hits her right in the face and stays there, hanging over her head.

“Fuck you, Fawn. Fuck you and your meddling and your fucking need to fucking _fuck around_ in my flat.”

Fawn slowly removes the damp towel from her head and folds it into a neat square. She sets it on the table beside her and tilts her head to one side, examining him.

“I hate you,” he bites out. He turns away, strips off the towel around his waist, walks stark naked past her toward the mahogany chest of drawers on the other side of the room. “I hate that I have to work with you, I hate how you loom over me like some anthropomorphic vulture, I hate that there isn’t a single fucking lock ever made in this entire fucking earth that can keep you out.”

She continues to study him, noting the anger rippling through the clean lines of his bare body. He yanks out a pair of pajama bottoms from one of the drawers and puts them on.

He turns to face her. “So I went to the hospital. So what? He couldn’t have seen me. Certainly not well enough to identify me.”

Fawn closes her eyes.

“Oh, hell. You’re not my mother. You’re not my handler. I’m not accountable to you.”

When she opens her eyes, he is right in front of her, and there is something in his eyes that claws at her. When she reaches for him, he resists at first, batting her hands away, even clamping a hand over her face as if to shut her out of his sight. But soon he crumbles, slowly and yet all at once. He sinks into her arms and sobs against her chest as if his heart is tearing itself to pieces.

Fawn stares into the darkness, allowing him this rare moment of safety. She doesn't know what it is that he has lost, but she does know, given the nature of this life and this work that they share, that it cannot be replaced. She doesn’t say a single word -- either of reproach or consolation -- not after he stops crying, not even after she finally lulls him to sleep. She simply draws the blanket over him, smooths the hair gently over his head, lets herself out through the bedroom window and closes it so he won't get cold.


	6. "Amague"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes has picked up Peter Guillam's scent, and the tables are turned.
> 
> In the terminology of the Argentinian Tango, "amague" is a feint -- a move that appears to be going in one direction, before switching at the last second.
> 
> (When the chapters deal mostly with encounters between Sherlock and Peter, I will be using the terminology of the dance. Just because).

The three words that Peter absolutely does not want to hear are coming down the wire at him from Ricki Tarr’s mouth.

“ _I’ve lost him_.”

“What?”

“I said I’ve lost him.” The panic in Ricki’s voice is unmistakable.

“How?” Peter asks through gritted teeth. “How is that _possible_?”

“He went down one end of Chiltern and never came out the other, Mr. Guillam.”

“So he’s still there!”

“There’s no sign of him. The other tails are just as confused.”

Peter slams the dashboard of his car with an open hand. “Fawn? Tell me you have something.”

“He went down one end of Chiltern and never came out the other.”

“Fuck. How do we lose a six-foot-tall man in a greatcoat?”

“Because he didn’t come out of Chiltern a six-foot-tall man in a greatcoat.”

“So he shaved a couple of inches off, then? Ditched the coat, is that right?”

Fawn waits a moment, shivering in the bitter cold of her 20th-floor perch despite what she’s wearing. “I can move to a position on another building. But no telling if I’ll spot him.”

“How soon can you get there?”

A pause. “If it were night, I could set up a zip line and be in place in five minutes without being seen. In broad daylight, I have to go on foot. Ten.”

Peter whacks the dashboard again, once, twice, this time with both hands. “God damn it to hell.”

“D’you think you should send down the tunnel rats, Mr. Guillam?” Ricki asks hopefully.

“Well, you’ve given me no choice, have you?”

The frequency crackles as Fawn switches to a single channel.

“Apologise.”

“Why should I? He lost Holmes.”

“Apologise.”

She switches back to multiple channels.

“I’m sorry, Ricki,” Peter sighs. “Yes, I’ll send the tunnel rats. Stand down, everyone. I repeat, stand down.”

 

It’s nearly sunset when Peter gets home, and he’s bone-tired, his lower back aching from being in the car for hours on end. He hasn’t had a bite since breakfast and he feels a cold coming on, all these long nights in the pre-winter chill. He shrugs off his jacket and kicks off his shoes, heads to the kitchen to put the kettle on and warm up a frozen dinner.

He hears something in the study, and he’s almost certain it isn’t Fawn.

He’s left his briefcase in the hall with the gun inside, and he moves in that direction, as quietly as he can.

“School teacher.” A man’s voice – a rumbling baritone, cold, imperious -- calls out to him from inside the study. “He was a school teacher.”

Peter feels like the blood is draining from his brain, and he heads to the study instead.

“Who are you? How did you get in?” He asks the question, but really, there can be no mistaking who it is: the height, the build, the tangle of dark, unruly curls, the coat, the hauteur in the posture.

“You’re surprised. You really shouldn’t be.” He faces Peter, turning the full wattage of those icy grey eyes on him, and Peter fights to keep himself steady.

“Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock Holmes waves long, pale fingers at a row of books on one of Peter’s bookshelves. “These aren’t yours -- your tastes are more complex, more esoteric. So he left in a hurry, and it was not a pleasant parting. You’ve had neither time nor opportunity to sort things out completely, many of his books are still here. Perhaps you tried to fix things, perhaps he ignored you. Ah, yes. Of course. He thought you had met someone else. How am I doing?”

Peter shakes his head. “Good to know you think my private life is fair game for your – deductions.” He's unable to keep a slight edge of bitterness out of his voice.

“I am simply returning the favour – Peter Guillam.”

They stand face to face, each trying to stare the other down.

“So. How did you find me?”

“Serge Lutens.”

Peter blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Your cologne. Pricey, but not unreasonably so, still well within a civil servant’s reach. Very clean, very distinctive base notes, something akin to burnt starch overlaying those hints of musk. A departure from some of their rather more exotic, spicy blends but ideal for someone who wants to smell good without necessarily being remembered for it. Perfectly lovely and yet perfectly anonymous. Am I right?”

Peter gropes for a chair and sinks down on it, feeling defeated. “You found me because of my cologne,” he says incredulously. “How did you even know I was wearing cologne? You never even got within 20 metres of me.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow, smirks at him. “Small hospital room, enclosed air-conditioned space? It wasn't difficult. I’ve been in that room many times, hours at a time, I know how it smells. I isolated your scent from that of the disinfectants, John’s natural scent, and the nurses’ cheap perfumes.”

Peter blinks up at him. “My scent?”

Sherlock barely pauses for breath, battering Peter with a hail of words. “I found a list of shops that sell it, pulled up files of recent purchases, then I cross-referenced that against your vehicle make and model and the first two letters of your license plate, as well as a list of known and rumoured intelligence operatives in the United Kingdom, and by the way, I am very, _very_ flattered that the Circus has taken such an interest in me that it has sent the head of its renowned Scalphunters division to follow me around London.”

In a split-second, he’s leaning over Peter, resting his hands on the armrests of the chair, creating a tight bubble of space to enclose the other man. “Because that IS who you are – isn’t it?”

Peter closes his eyes, drawing an inexplicably shaky breath. He’s been in awfully tense, difficult situations before, but not like this, not with someone like Sherlock Holmes. He feels trapped somehow, completely surrounded by this man, his electric presence, his simmering anger, the heat radiating from him.

“What I fail to understand is, why risk going to John’s hospital room? You don’t know him, you’ve never met him, you’ve no basis for sentiment, no conceivable reason to go and stand by his bedside as he struggles to stay alive. What were you trying to accomplish by –“

Suddenly there’s a shuffling noise in the next room, and Sherlock straightens up at once, abruptly releasing Peter from the bubble and glancing at the open door of the study.

“Ah. We have company. And a rather unconventional means of entry.” He turns back to Peter. “What are the odds that it’s that acrophiliac spider-monkey you’ve got scurrying all over London’s rooftops to spy on me?”

 

Fawn appears in the doorway. She leans against the frame casually, unperturbed by Sherlock’s presence. She casts a quick look at Peter; he nods to acknowledge her and, satisfied that he isn’t hurt in any way, she trains her attention fully on the detective.

“Oh, a _woman_ ,” Sherlock says, slightly surprised. He moves a few steps closer. “Former competitive gymnast, interesting." He allows his eyes to trail over her body in a coldly clinical way, reading the fine but powerful ropes of muscle and sinew that lie underneath her clothes. "Olympic-level. You grew a bit taller than anticipated, didn’t you? That’s why you stopped – No. The growth spurt was after, something else happened to make you stop. But what?”

Fawn tilts her head to one side in that birdlike way of hers, studying him the same way he is studying her. She gives nothing away, other than that she is neither afraid of nor intimidated by him.

Sherlock grins, then glances back at Peter. “I had some idea how good your Circus operatives were, you’re all like some kind of urban legend, but this, oh, this is all very, very interesting.” He points a finger at the other man. “So you’re the brains – in a manner of speaking,” he adds, partly in contempt, partly in admiration. “The man driving the postal van is the muscle. And you –“ he whirls around on Fawn again. “-- you, my dear, are the aerialist. And I’ll just bet you could outclass Sebastian Moran in the sniper trade, couldn’t you? That’s why they’ve got you up on the high-rises, isn’t it -- acute vision, possibly even at night, unparalleled sense of balance, experience with various types of climbing, especially free-climbing and oh, you love it up there, don’t you, it’s a compulsion, you want to _fly_ – Oh. _That’s it_.”

He moves close enough to her so that his face is just inches from hers. “Someone put you in a cage a long time ago, someone very, very bad, but you escaped somehow. _You flew away_.”

Peter can’t tear his eyes away from the two of them, can hardly believe how this man has learned in the space of about two minutes what he himself took years to find out: the things Fawn has kept locked away, along with her real name. He waits to see how Fawn will react.

She keeps her eyes steadily on Sherlock but she begins to clap, slowly at first as she moves away from the door frame, then picking up speed and volume. The detective is taken aback at first, then he turns away from her. But she follows close behind him, still clapping at him.

“Stop it. STOP IT,” he commands.

She stops and leaps up onto Peter’s desk, balancing precariously on the edge, and Sherlock is simultaneously fascinated and baffled. He looks at Peter. “She must be hugely entertaining to keep around.”

Peter’s mouth has gone dry. “She – she’s …”

Then just as suddenly as before, Sherlock has enclosed him in the bubble of space again. Dusk has given way to darkness outside the windows, and in the soft glow of Peter’s study lamps, Sherlock’s grey eyes are now tinged with a yellow fire. “Who sent you?”

Something finally clicks and Peter is quickly on his feet, nearly head-butting the other man in the process. “You know who we work for, so you know very well who sent us,” he replies coldly.

“I know who your chief is. That doesn’t mean I know who sent you,” Sherlock snarls into Peter’s face.

“Try harder,” Peter snarls back.

Sherlock stands back. “Oh.”  His face twists in fury. “Stupid, _stupid_.” He turns away from Peter, flicking the collar of his coat up. “Tell your chief I want a meeting.”

“I’m not your fucking messenger boy.”

“And I’m not a patient man.”

“That much is obvious.”

Sherlock swings around, glaring at Peter. “Do you really want to be playing verbal games with me? Because we could be here all night.”

“ _Mr. Guillam_.”

Sherlock looks at Fawn, startled at the deep, throaty voice that has come out of her. “Well, now. The monkey _talks_.” His eyes narrow. “Faint trace of an Eastern European accent. Mixed heritage – ah, yes. Georgian father, traces of your Japanese mother in the colour of your hair and the shape of your eyes. It should be fairly easy to find out who you are now.”

“Stop it,” Peter hisses at him. “We are simply obeying instructions, which, might I remind you, were to protect _you_.”

“I dislike being kept in the dark or having decisions made on my behalf. It’s -- disrespectful. Tell your chief I want a meeting. Tomorrow, time and place of his choosing. I won’t ask again.” Sherlock darts out of the study, and Peter goes after him.

“And your brother?”

Sherlock’s face darkens. “That is an invitation that I will be sure to extend myself.”


	7. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock demands answers -- and finds ways to get them.

Mycroft Holmes is settled deep in the embrace of a fine leather chair. There is a fairly large stack of folders on the small table that also holds his mobile phone, now switched to silent mode, and a glass with three fingers of a very fine single-malt. He reads so fast that he makes short work of the papers, drinks so slowly that the scotch lasts an hour and a half.  There are other men in other chairs just like this one in this vast, well-appointed room. But they are each wrapped up in their respective cocoons of silence, happy to be left alone.

It’s a very quiet place, the Diogenes. He’d intended for it to be that way, a club for men like him who can barely tolerate the company of other people, who feel drained by simple conversation and harassed by human interaction. Men who feel the contact with their own species as a kind of constant rubbing against the roughest sandpaper, scratching and stripping and wearing away; and in some severe cases, flaying.

God knows that’s how Mycroft feels many times: like he is being flayed alive by the utter ignorance and petty viciousness of people. He himself is vicious – it’s a family trait he shares with Sherlock, like their height or their noses or their terrifying intellects -- but there is nothing petty about it. Viciousness for its own sake is a waste of time and energy; it’s a weapon that must be wielded judiciously and with intent, calibrated for maximum effect.

 That’s where he and his brother differ fundamentally. Sherlock dispenses his own particular brand of viciousness the way a hussy dispenses her favours, casually and frequently and indiscriminately, often with little purpose or calculation. It’s a source of endless trepidation for Mycroft, because better than his brother, Mycroft understands the reptilian side of the human brain, understands that primitive urge to lash out and crush. And Sherlock has the unfortunate knack for luring that particular monster out, drawing it to himself, taunting it.

 At this moment, however, Mycroft has other things to think about. There is the case of the young rogue trader who has brought down one of Europe’s oldest financial institutions; there is the situation in Beijing with the foreign minister who has been paying young men and women to seduce Western diplomats and blackmail them. The financial institution happens to have been holding the bulk of the external debt of two major European allies; and one of the compromised diplomats is a potential cabinet minister and a key player in the Prime Minister’s party.  Mycroft’s brain relishes the intricacies of the first problem and detests the irksome banality of the second. He decides to delegate the matter of the diplomat who could not keep his foreign policy in his pants to a junior aide.

 There is a commotion outside the doors, and the other men in the room look at first puzzled, then – as the tumult comes closer -- horrified. Mycroft’s antennae twitch, alert to danger. Then as the doors burst open he hears a familiar baritone that fills up this massive space like a rolling avalanche of sound.

 “-- I’m sure an exception can be made for me, considering that my brother is one of the founders of your esteemed institution …”

Mycroft draws as deep a breath as he can, quickly tucks his papers into his briefcase and snaps the locks shut in monumental annoyance. Sherlock has not stopped talking since his grand entrance; Mycroft can see reflected in a glass cabinet, a scene that reminds him very much of that story in the bible when Jesus supposedly got royally pissed off at the money changers and cattle sellers in his Father’s temple: half a dozen wealthy, crusty, unclubbable geriatrics scattering like frightened sheep before his brother’s zealous wrath.

Mycroft turns to face him and the two security officers in close pursuit. He dismisses them with a single nod, then addresses his brother quietly and through clenched teeth. 

“Sherlock, do be so kind as to follow me.” 

Mycroft begins to lead him down a long hallway to a smaller room, the only place in the entire club where it is acceptable to hold conversations, but Sherlock’s having none of it.

“Actually, Mycroft, I just popped down to see if you’d like to have lunch with me,” the younger man says cheerfully. Cheerfully? Mycroft is frankly astonished, and it shows in his face; his brother is one of the very few people in the world who have the ability to astonish him. Yes; he is cheerful. Cheerful and loud, loud enough to be heard in the perpetually silent rooms of the Diogenes Club.

 “ _Lunch_?” Mycroft repeats in a whisper.

 “Yes, I’ve found the most charming place not too far from here and I thought to myself, why, it has been ages since I last had a proper chat with my dear older brother, and – “

 Members of the club are filtering into the hallway or peeping out of doors, their faces black with outrage, most of it directed, not at his brother, but at himself. Mycroft realises that Sherlock is being loud and cheery and even more verbose than usual because he wants to annoy, so that his big brother will have no choice but to come with him.

“All right, Sherlock,” he sighs. “Come away now. You have my full and undivided attention.”

 

Ricki Tarr is already at the scene when Smiley and Peter arrive; he’s leaning against the bonnet of  a dark blue Peugeot.  Smiley nods and Peter acknowledges him with the barest of glances. It’s enough. The two head in, and Ricki stays outside.

 

Some people like to get roaring drunk in order to unwind; others like to knit or play pool. Some do crossword puzzles or go bowling; others have sex.

James Moriarty indulges in imaginary mathematics. He finds poetry in the idea of a number that has a real part and an imaginary part. He wrestles with problems that would leave scholars scratching their heads, and he does so as a temporary refuge from the sheer stultifying sameness of  most of his days. 

Of late, the math has not been as delightful and satisfying as it used to be; no, only playing the game with Sherlock Holmes is delicious now, but since Jim succeeded in landing John Watson in a coma, Sherlock has become oh, so reluctant to play.

So -- all machinations to engineer Sherlock’s downfall and demise aside –- Jim is left with imaginary math. He is applying himself to a problem that would make scholars weep, when his phone rings. 

“Yes.”

“You remember what I said about your boy getting help from someone other than his big brother?”

 Jim drops the pen he is holding. “Tell me.”

 “I think he’s run off to the Circus.”

 Jim goes from zero to seething in milliseconds. “And you know this how?”

 “He’s right in the middle of three rings.”

 

When they step out of Mycroft’s car, Sherlock studies his brother’s face carefully. He savours the horror that dances across Mycroft’s features before it is quickly buried under the usual mask of mild distaste.

“Really, Sherlock. A Wimpy Bar?” Mycroft adjusts the lapels of his suit jacket as though he is preparing to go into battle. “I was not aware that you had developed a taste for congealed fat. You do keep so many secrets from me.” 

Sherlock’s eyes widen in mock delight. “Come on, brother dear! It will be _fun_. A little detour into the  déclassé! Surely a useful experience for one such as yourself.” And he sweeps ahead in a swirl of dark coat and curls, yanking Mycroft along behind him on some invisible string.

When he steps through the door, the first thing Mycroft sees is George Smiley, sitting at a corner table. 

He stiffens, and Sherlock, who has an uncanny ability to pick up and exploit his brother’s rare episodes of discomfort, turns back and clutches him in a false, brotherly hug, dragging him forward.

“Look, Mycroft. I’ve invited your friends, too. Isn’t this just _splendid_?”

 As they approach, Smiley stands, and so does the younger man seated across from him, tall and trim and blond. 

 “I’m sure I don’t have to introduce you all to each other, but oh, I must introduce _myself,_ “ Sherlock says, offering his hand to Smiley.  “We haven’t met, I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

Smiley looks at the hand, but doesn’t take it. “Pleasure, Mr. Holmes,” he says quietly. “Shall we sit?”

The sound of the chairs scraping on the floor grates in Mycroft’s ears. He is furious with his brother, and furious with Smiley as well, but he holds himself very still in order to compose himself.

 “Now, now, Mycroft, you mustn’t be angry with Mr. Smiley here, or with young Mr. Guillam,” Sherlock natters on, winking mischievously at Peter. He looks away to hide the blush that slowly creeps across his face.

Mycroft’s rigid smile is a study in politeness under extreme duress. “I am angry with neither George nor – Peter, yes?”

Sherlock gapes at his brother in feigned shock. “Oh, you’re angry – with me.”

 “Sherlock, what have you brought us all here for? Surely it can’t be for the quality of the cuisine.”

 Smiley holds up a hand. “If I may, Mr. Holmes. Your brother was able to spot the surveillance we had set up –“

 “But it took me a while, “ Sherlock interrupts. “Too long a while, and that, dear brother, is a testament to how good your Circus is.”

 “It’s not _my_ Circus, Sherlock,” Mycroft mutters.

 Peter is growing impatient. “Perhaps you’d like to tell us what we are all doing here, other than to gratify your altogether too healthy ego.”

 Sherlock fixes the other man with a cold grey stare. “Very well. I want to know everything that you know. My brother would not have involved you in my conflict with James Moriarty unless he had serious concerns, concerns which he has very conveniently neglected to share with me. If there is anything I despise -- and my brother knows this only too well -- it is being kept in the dark by people who think they are doing it for my own good, and fail time and again to realise that my best protection is to have all the necessary facts to hand.”

 A waitress emerges from the kitchen and walks past them, and Mycroft quickly looks around the restaurant, taking stock of the situation. “Little brother, I suppose you find it amusing to discuss matters of national importance in a place as public and unsecured as this, but I –“

Smiley shakes his head slowly. “It was not your brother’s choice to meet here, Mr. Holmes. It was mine.”

Mycroft is speechless for a moment, but soon understands. “Ah. Of course. This place … isn’t really what it seems.”

Peter smirks. “Oh, it is, sir.  If you ask for a Bender in a bun with cheese, you’ll get it.  But it’s as secure a location as you could possibly want.”

Sherlock bestows a smug smile upon his brother. “There. You see? Now if we can all get back to why we’re here, which is for all of you to tell me exactly what the _hell_ is going on.”

 

When it’s all over, Sherlock is extremely quiet. Mycroft thinks he’s letting it all sink in, and he offers his brother a ride back to Baker Street. “No,” Sherlock says. He tilts his head briefly toward Peter. “We’re going to see John.”

Peter’s head whips around so fast that he feels slightly dizzy from the movement. “We are?”

 “Yes. You’re taking me there, then you’re escorting me home.” He turns to both Mycroft and Smiley. “That _is_ what you had both intended, isn’t it? For me to be protected at all times?”

Mycroft sighs, turns and walks toward his waiting car. Peter looks at Smiley questioningly, but the older man only nods, and walks away.

Peter squares his shoulders, slides his hands into his pockets and starts walking, fast. “Car’s this way,” he says brusquely, not waiting for Sherlock to catch up.

But of course he does, and as soon as they’re shoulder to shoulder, he asks Peter: “Why Scalphunters, then?”

Peter frowns but doesn’t look at him. “What do you mean?”

“You have your Lamplighters and your Babysitters. Why was it your division that got involved?”

Peter shrugs, a small and oddly elegant lift of the shoulders. “You should have asked George while you had the chance.”

“I’m asking _you_.”

“We simply do what we’re told.”

“No, there was a reason you were the ones he told.” They stop at an alley where Peter has parked his Citroën. “Oh. Of course. You, and the muscle man, and the spider monkey, and Smiley. You’re a tight club, aren’t you? A little fraternity of spooks, and you’ve all sworn allegiance to your chief, and to each other.”

Peter holds the door open for him. “Shut up and get in.”

 

John Watson remains motionless and unconscious in his hospital bed. Peter watches Sherlock’s face, but it’s devoid of expression; he’s observing, very likely cataloguing minute changes in John’s face and body, searching for cues as to his real condition. Peter feels like he’s intruding on a private moment, and so he turns away and begins to head for the door.

“Why did you come here?” Sherlock asks.

“You made me take you.”

“No, not tonight. The other night, why did you come? You don’t know him, you had no reason to visit. So why?”

Peter bristles. “You ask too many questions.”

Sherlock’s grey eyes narrow. “Evasion is an answer in its own right.”

“I’ll be outside,” Peter says.

“You wanted to see him. To study him.” Sherlock moves toward the other man. “But why? What could you possibly –“

Peter grasps the doorknob and yanks the door open. “I’ll be outside,” he repeats, and slips away.

 

The ride back to Baker Street is blessedly quiet; Sherlock is lost in thought, and Peter is grateful for small mercies.  At some point he announces that he will be dropping Sherlock off at a corner some distance away from 221B.  Sherlock frowns. “Too many eyes watching you,” Peter explains, as he slows to a stop.

Sherlock huffs impatiently. “Oh, what does it matter? If everything your dear George Smiley says it’s true, the end game will be upon us in a matter of days. “

“Well, I want to stretch those days out as long as I can, and not accelerate Moriarty’s timetable needlessly.” Peter reaches across, opens the door on Sherlock’s side.

The brush of body against body stuns Sherlock. He’s familiar by now with the scent of Peter’s cologne, but this, this is the first time he’s caught what’s underneath, soap and healthy sweat and the clean, warm smell of his hair. It's like a direct and powerful hit to the solar plexus. When Peter withdraws, Sherlock is perfectly still.

“Are you all right?” Peter asks.

The other man doesn’t answer at once, and when he does, his voice is soft and the words don’t carry their usual sting.

“You want me to walk home, then. From here.”

Peter glances around, satisfies himself that the coast is clear. “It’s not a long way. And we’ve got you covered. Street level and above.”

Sherlock slowly rises from his seat but something is clearly wrong, and Peter puts a hand on his arm. “What is it?”

Sherlock looks down at Peter’s hand, long, pale fingers against his dark coat. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Why you went to see John.”

“Oh, Christ.”

Sherlock slams the car door shut. “You can leave the car here. Come up in ten minutes.” He starts heading in the direction of the flat.

“I’m tired, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock pauses. “Ten minutes, Mr. Guillam.”

 

When he disappears round the corner, Peter contacts Fawn on the communications link. “I’m to come up to his flat in 10 minutes.”

No response except the sound of her breathing.

“Fawn? Say something.”

“Why are you on single channel to me?”

Peter is about to retort that it doesn’t matter when he realises what she is driving at.  “You’re a bitch, you know that?”

“Why don’t you want Ricki to hear this?”

“I’m just going to talk to Holmes, all right?”

“Would you like me to explain to you why you’re on single channel to me?”

“Oh, please do, Fawn," Peter retorts, his voice coated with a honeyed sarcasm. "I know you love to drop these pearls of wisdom for my edification.”

“You don’t need Ricki’s permission, but you want mine.”

“Fuck you.”

“You won’t get it.”

“ _Fuck. You_.”

“Mr. Guillam, this is a bad idea.”

“Do you want out, Fawn? Because I can order you to stand down.”

“This is a very bad idea.”

“Stand down, Fawn.”

She’s silent for a while, and then she says: “I won’t.”

“Won’t you? You’re obviously questioning my authority in this operation.”

“Not your authority. Your _judgment_.”

“And there’s a difference?”

“You know there is. “

“You’re neither my mother, nor my conscience,” he snarls.

“No, I’m your …” she takes a deep breath, and there’s another silence as she struggles with something, then comes to a decision.

“I will stay here, Mr. Guillam.”

“Are you sure, Fawn? Because I’m still going in.”

“I will stay here until you tell me to stand down.”

A few more minutes, and Peter leaves the car, and makes his way slowly toward the flat. Halfway there, he finds that he is trembling.

 

Sherlock Holmes is watching the street from the window of his flat. He sees Peter Guillam coming round the corner on foot.

Maybe now he will get an answer.


	8. "El Abrazo"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter Guillam crosses that invisible line with Sherlock Holmes, even as Moriarty's net closes in on the detective and his doctor.
> 
> In the language of the Argentine tango, the "abrazo" is a close embrace.
> 
> (Rating changed to reflect this chapter's explicit content).

The door of 221B is open, and Peter can hear the sound of a violin. He stops at the doorway, slouches against the frame with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Sherlock Holmes has exchanged his suit jacket for a dressing gown, and is playing the violin in bare feet.

Of course, the Circus’ comprehensive dossier on this subject has already told Peter that  Sherlock plays the violin. What it didn’t tell him is just how well. The notes lance through him; he feels each bow stroke as an almost physical pain, and he has to close his eyes.

Sherlock observes Peter’s reflection in the glass of  the window. The man is leaning on the door frame, eyes closed, lost in the music. With their images juxtaposed on the window glass like this, it strikes Sherlock just how similar they are, except for the colour of their hair and eyes: same height, same build, the same chiseled angularity of bone and body. 

He continues playing, content for now to study the other man. It’s when he hits the high note in the last few measures of the piece that Peter’s eyelids flutter open, and the look on his face makes Sherlock lift the bow off the strings. He turns around, cataloguing with efficient greed: _eyes moist, lips parted slightly, cheeks flushed, breathing shallow_.

“Problem?” he asks.

Peter’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down underneath the smooth, pale skin of his throat. “That thing. You did.”

Sherlock surveys both bow and violin. “I was playing. “ 

“That – note.”

 _Ah_ , Sherlock mouths soundlessly.  “The Allegro from Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in D Minor. You’re familiar with it?”

“I – I’ve heard it before. But never like that.” 

Sherlock’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t respond to this. Instead, he says, “You’re letting in a draft, do come in and shut the door.” He lays the violin and the bow aside, then settles himself in his favorite chair. Peter looks around the room and then back at Sherlock for cues as to where to sit, and the other man cocks his head toward the couch. 

 _You're nervous, why are you nervous?_ Peter asks himself. _Get a hold of yourself.  It's not a date. It's a job, this man is – a job._

Sherlock is not helping, that icy stare boring into Peter's skull like a diamond drill. “You’re nervous,” he observes coolly.

“No, I’m tired. It’s been a long day, and we have an early start tomorrow.” There’s a fugitive note of distress in his voice, one that is not lost on the detective.

“You’re not involved in the other side of the operation. Stopping the sale of the warheads.”

“No, that’s –“ Peter inhales sharply. “Not our department.”

Sherlock is silent for long moments, legs crossed, fingers steepled together under his chin. “You’re half-French,” he says suddenly.

“You're a quarter.”

Another few beats of silence, and Sherlock finds it somehow comforting that Peter seems to have suspended his customary tetchiness to allow him to think.  To think about _him_ – to assess him, his background, his motivations.

“I suppose it’s true, then.”

“What is?”

“That certain professions are, shall we say, inherited.”

Peter shakes his head. “And you got that from staring at me for three minutes?”

“Your family has been in the espionage trade for generations. Father, mother, grandfather, quite likely further back than that. The thing about unusual occupations is that you either turn your back on them because you hate everything you know about them, or you gravitate to them because they’re the only life that you know, possibly from childhood. You’ve moved around a lot, you have the physical and mental restlessness of someone who never stays in one place for too long, and you have a compulsive need for danger, but you won’t admit it.”

“Is this a therapy session, then?” Peter drawls. “We’ll have to negotiate your fee. I spent the last of my paycheck on some lovely but anonymous cologne from Serge Lutens.”

Sherlock ignores him. “George Smiley. He trained you, and you think he is a good man. You’d do anything for him. You all would, you and the spider monkey and the muscle man. Somehow he’s – saved all of you from something.” 

“That happens rather more often in the trade than you might think,” Peter shrugs.

“Not in the same way. No, he’s done things to – cement your loyalties.  Not just earn them. _Cement_ them. _Oh_.” Sherlock stands, moves close to the couch to stand in front of Peter. “The school teacher. You gave him up for Smiley.”

Peter stands as well, clearly uncomfortable, clearly unhappy with the direction the conversation is heading. “I should get going.”

“Several months ago,” Sherlock bulldozes right through. “No, almost a year. That business with the mole at the Circus. The timing would have been about right. Smiley wouldn't have asked for this specifically -- in fact, he doesn't know, does he? That you're gay? But he didn't need to ask, you did it on your own. Felt it was the right thing to do.”

“All right, that’s enough out of you,” Peter says, and he moves quickly for the door, but in a flash, Sherlock is beside him, his hand on Peter’s arm, and the contact feels to him like he's just brushed against a live wire.

“Why did you go to the hospital to see John?”

“You obviously have your theories, or else you wouldn’t have asked me here.” Peter tries to wriggle free, but Sherlock’s grip on his arm tightens, and he presses closer, too close.

“I want you to tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Peter snaps at him. “That I wanted to understand? What kind of man he is? What kind of man a man like you would allow into his life? Share his home, his work? That I wanted to see what was so special about John Watson with my own eyes?”

Sherlock lets go of Peter’s arm and staggers back. He appears genuinely shocked. “You – you wanted to … But you couldn’t have gotten any of that from John. Not now, not in the state he’s in.”

“You look surprised.” Peter is sneering at him now. “What, this didn’t figure in your calculations? That someone assigned to protect you might develop some kind of -- unhealthy fascination with you?”

“You wouldn’t have understood anything by going to the hospital. John is –“

“John is what? Stalwart and surprising? Fantastic in bed?”

Sherlock’s eyes widen. “We don’t – we’re not …”

“Oh, spare me,” Peter says. It’s his turn to crowd Sherlock, advancing as the detective backs away. “I’ve seen how you look when you leave the hospital. Like your world has shattered into the tiniest of fragments around you. Like you’d happily throttle anyone who had a hand in his ending up like this.”

Lightning flash of anger in Sherlock’s glacial eyes. “John is my friend, the only one I have. Am I not allowed to feel that way about him?”

“If he’s your only friend, then I’d say you don’t really have enough life experience to fully understand what you feel for him.” Peter has Sherlock backed up enough so that the backs of his knees are pressed against the seat of his chair. It doesn’t take much to push him down into it.

“Why?” the detective asks in a thoroughly puzzled voice. Peter is so close, the smell of him, the heat of his body as intoxicating as any controlled substance. “Why would you ... This -- _fascination_ you speak of, it's absurd, you’d never even met me until I broke into your flat two days ago. How do you even begin to feel any kind of attachment to someone who –“

Peter clamps a hand over Sherlock’s mouth and presses his head and shoulders back against the soft leather of the chair. He sets his right knee into the seat, rubbing against Sherlock’s left thigh, effectively pinning the detective in place. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear you talk. You talk too _fucking_ much, has anyone ever told you that? Has your best friend, your only friend, ever told you that? Because if he hasn’t yet, he’s done you a tremendous disservice.”

Sherlock tries to speak, but Peter’s hand over his mouth muffles every sound. But even as he _mhsudfhsneblkjevs_ through his words, he doesn’t try to remove the hand, or push Peter away.

“A man like you,” Peter whispers, his voice gone husky with both wonder and need. “What would it take to make you just. Shut. Up.”

And just like that, Sherlock stops trying to talk, trying to defend John, because John isn’t the issue here, Peter is: the tall, solid reality of him, the electric tension in the muscles of his legs where they touch Sherlock’s own, his breath on Sherlock’s face, his pale blue eyes burning. Panic rises in him, blazing a white-hot trail from the deep pit of his belly to the back of his throat, and the words, the words come at him in a virtual blizzard: _No, yes, dangerous, interesting, no, stop, think, unwise, stop thinking, dangerous, yes._

 ** _Yes_ ** _._

“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth,” Peter explains to him, like he is speaking to a slow child. “When I do, I don’t want to hear anything. You understand me?”  His voice, low and threatening: this is the Scalphunters’ Peter Guillam, the Peter Guillam you don’t ever want to see, deadly serious and just plain deadly, and Sherlock, mesmerised, can only nod.

When he lifts his hand from Sherlock’s mouth, there’s no sound save for his ragged breathing. “Good,” Peter whispers. “One gold star because you’re such a good boy.” He dips his head and his lips graze Sherlock’s, light and gentle at first, quickly deepening to something hard and brutal. And Sherlock finds himself rising to meet this assault, one hand snaking up to grasp the nape of Peter’s neck and pull him even closer.

 _Sherlock_. His mouth is so soft, his breath so warm and sweet and alive, this morning's toothpaste and this afternoon's black coffee and the slight staleness at the end of a long day, so deliciously human for a thinking machine. Peter craves, takes greedily, grasps a fistful of the soft, dark curls and pulls back, tilting the detective’s head, exposing the pale, silky column of his neck. Line of searing kisses from jawline to Adam’s apple, right down to the hollow delineated by sharp collarbone. Peter sucks the tender skin there, and Sherlock moans, arches his body to give him further access, and in the process makes his own burgeoning need so very evident to the other man. 

Peter’s heart races as he sees and feels Sherlock’s – _desperation_. It’s the only way to describe it, this: so unguarded, so breathtaking, and yet somehow so painful to see. He knows – again from the dossiers – that the detective has not had much of a history of sexual or emotional entanglements. Peter feels a spasm of guilt, as though he’s doing something forbidden, and this gives him pause even as his hand strays down to the younger man’s belt buckle. Almost instantly, Sherlock writhes like a nest of snakes, pushing his pelvis up into Peter’s hand.

“Easy,” Peter says gently. “It’s not a race.”

“Do it,” Sherlock bites out in frustration. “If you find me so fascinating, do it.”

So like him, taking a jab at Peter even as he is practically begging to be touched.  It nettles Peter as much as it excites him, and he shoves Sherlock roughly back into the seat as he starts on his belt buckle. Sherlock’s hands move, reaching for the buttons on Peter’s waistcoat, but Peter grabs his wrists and wrenches them away.

“We are doing this my way, or not at all. Are we clear on this?”

“Why must you –“

“My way, Mr. Holmes. Or not at all.” Each word a chip of ice, and there can be no question that Peter means what he says. 

He lets go of Sherlock’s hands and resumes unbuckling his belt, unzipping his fly. The detective is barely breathing now, and as Peter reaches in and touches him, the breath hitches in his throat and he closes his eyes. Peter’s fingers close around him, warm and expert and insidious, and Sherlock tries to choke back the cry that threatens to tear from his throat.

Peter unbuttons the detective’s shirt, planting slow, gentle kisses down the line of exposed skin even as his hand inflicts the most exquisite violence on his wet, rigid cock. He lets go just long enough to shrug off his own jacket, unbutton his waistcoat, and unbuckle his belt to ease his own raging arousal. But Sherlock is squirming again, _can’t leave you unattended for too long, look at you, so needy, an anomaly._

_A fucking beautiful anomaly._

Sherlock’s eyes suddenly fly open, and he freezes. Peter realises that he has been speaking aloud in the heat of the moment.

“Anomaly?” Sherlock asks, and his voice is odd and small, and sounds like it’s coming from a very distant place. “An _anomaly_?”

Peter presses another kiss on his lips, wraps his fingers around Sherlock again. “Dirty talk, you’ll learn it as you go,” he says, but suddenly he finds himself being pushed away.

“An _anomaly._ Like a _freak_ , hmmm?”  And just like that, the detective comes crashing back into himself, into the familiar coldness, the arrogance, the machine-like composure. He stands, turns away from Peter, arranges himself back into his trousers, buttons up his shirt.

“That’s not what I meant,” Peter protests.

“Interesting, Mr. Guillam, that your … _dirty talk_ , as you so poetically put it, should be so damning of your sexual partners.”

Peter is horrified at this turn of events, _you bloody stupid bastard, what have you done_? He moves closer to Sherlock, presses his body into his back. “Please, that wasn’t what I meant at all, I wasn’t thinking straight –“

“Did the school teacher take kindly to it, or am I truly an _anomaly_?” he asks, as he buckles his belt.

“Richard …” Peter pauses. “The school teacher was nothing like you.” He doesn’t mean the school teacher was better, or worse -- simply so very different. But of course Sherlock doesn’t read it that way. He jerks away from Peter and heads toward the door.

“I think we’ve established beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am like no one else. And for all that, an obviously poor substitute for whatever it is that you’ve lost.” He holds the door open for Peter. “And now if you will excuse me, Mr. Guillam, I have things to do.”

Peter gapes at him for a moment, then picks his jacket up from the floor.  He stands in the middle of the room stunned, as though he has just been hit by a bus. He looks and feels utterly wretched.

“You know that I wasn’t – that I didn’t …”

“Good night, Mr. Guillam.”

Peter walks to the door, stops in front of Sherlock. “I wasn’t using you as a substitute for what I’ve lost, either.”

“Hmmm, pity. “ The gray eyes are alight with cold fury.  “ _I_ was using _you_.”

The door slams in his face.

 

As soon as he steps out of the building, the communication link buzzes, and Peter puts the earpiece on. “Fawn?”

“You really shouldn’t turn the link off, Mr. Guillam. Now go back in there and get him.”

“I didn't turn the link off, Fawn, and I don’t know what you think happened in there, but –“

“Do as I say, Mr. Guillam. Now. They’ve gone after John Watson.”

Peter tilts his head up at the buildings around them and whirls about, as though he can trace her position, as though he can make eye contact. “At the hospital?” he asks anxiously. “Is he all right?”

“No time to explain. I see five – no, six players converging on Baker Street fast, and a seventh on a rooftop below me. I can hold them off with covering fire, and Ricki will be along in a minute."

"But get Mr. Holmes out of there _NOW_.”

 

 


	9. Blood on Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moriarty's gang closes in on Sherlock and John. As Peter Guillam and his team from the Circus try desperately to protect them, Sebastian Moran confronts a ghost from the past.

Peter bangs on the door of 221B.

“Go away.”

“Open the damn door, Mr. Holmes,” Peter hollers. There’s no response, and they’re almost out of time. So he draws back, then with a swift, well-practised kick, he knocks the door open.

“What the hell—“

“Come with me,” Peter says, quietly menacing. “No arguments. You’re in danger, we all are.”

Sherlock frowns but he’s already shrugging his dressing gown off and reaching for his jacket. “Why, what’s happened?”

“They came after Dr. Watson at the hospital.”

Sherlock’s grey eyes widen, rage flickering there. “What? Is he all right? Where is he?"

“That’s all I know.” Peter grabs Sherlock’s shoes and socks from where they’re lying on the floor. “We need to get out of here now.  Fawn’s marked six assassins coming for you, and a sniper on a rooftop. Hurry.”

The two men rush down the stairs, then Sherlock stops. “My landlady – Mrs. Hudson …”

“She’s not here. “

“How do you know?” Sherlock demands.

Peter takes him roughly by the arm. “It’s _my business_ to know. Now, move your ass.” 

His earpiece crackles to life and it’s Fawn's voice. “Less than a minute, Mr. Guillam.”

Already he can hear the tyres of Ricki Tarr’s van screeching down the street.  The two men burst out of the door just as the van arrives; it slides alongside the curb but doesn’t stop. Peter drags Sherlock along, and his peripheral vision marks another vehicle, an unremarkable beige Toyota Corolla, bearing down upon them in the opposite direction.

He covers as much of Sherlock’s body with his own as he can, just as shots ring out. And then it’s all a blur; the door of the van slides open; two men get out of the Corolla, run across the street toward them; another two men come at them on the pavement. Peter shoves Sherlock into the van; there’s the dull, distinctive sound of a silenced L115A3 round and one of the men on the pavement goes down. That’s Fawn. Another two rounds, fired in rapid succession, hit the roof of the van, the second one nearly clipping Peter; that's _not_ Fawn. The two men from the Corolla are firing directly into the windshield, in hopes of disabling Ricki; but it’s an armoured vehicle, and the bullets glance off. Peter jumps in after Sherlock, and the remaining three men get to the door just as it slides firmly shut. 

“Go, go,” Peter yells at Ricki, and Ricki is off like a shot. The driver of the Corolla is maneuvering to block their way, and Ricki sees a fourth man in the vehicle lining them up for a likely strike with armour-piercing ammunition.

“Take out the Corolla, Fawn,” Ricki shouts, as he plows into the front of the car and pushes right through. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the fourth man suddenly collapse. Ricki keeps going; a glance into the side mirror shows him that the driver has come out and grabbed the dead man’s rifle. He’s crouched low behind the Corolla, presumably to escape Fawn’s sights, and is aiming at them.

“Fawn …” he starts.

“I’ve got this,” Peter says. He rolls down a window, takes careful aim with his Glock 17, and sends the bullet straight into the man’s left eye.  

But Peter takes a few seconds too long to pull back into the van, and suddenly he feels a searing pain in his left shoulder. He falls back onto Sherlock, and Sherlock quickly leans over and rolls down the window.

“You’ve been hit,” he says gravely.

 

Sebastian Moran is beside himself with fury. This should have been a simple operation, the men on the ground were reliable professionals.

He hadn’t banked on the _other_ sniper.

He can’t move very much without drawing his attention, AND his fire, but Moran estimates he’s at least five or six stories higher than where he himself is positioned. Whoever he is, he’s good --  _incredibly_ good – as good as Moran, possibly even better. He allows himself to think this for a fraction of a second, but pushes it resolutely out of his mind. 

He turns his head carefully to look at the buildings around him. “Where are you, you fucker?” he mutters under his breath. “Just show yourself and I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

 

Fawn sees Peter through her thermal infrared scope, falling back into the van, and she knows that he’s been hit. Through the earpiece, she hears the van's tyres squealing, more gunfire, then Sherlock’s voice: **_You’ve been hit_**.

It’s Moran, no one else. None of the three men remaining on the ground were in the right position. Fawn feels a deep surge of hatred, but remains perfectly still, as Ricki speeds off down Baker Street.  She knows instinctively that Moran is waiting. Waiting for her to move, to make a mistake. It’s what she would be doing if she were in his place.

It would be so easy, now, to pick him off. The temptation is so great, the swell of loathing and vengeance threatening to engulf all reason and restraint like a tidal wave; but if she does, she will be cheating herself of the moment she has waited more than half of her life for.

In the end, it’s Peter who decides for her.

 

Sherlock peels back Peter’s jacket, already stained with blood.

Peter takes a shaky breath. “It’s nothing.” If he's being honest with himself, though, it doesn’t feel like nothing.

“First-aid kit in the back,” Ricki yells at Sherlock. The detective lays Peter slowly, gently on the seat and launches himself over the back, scrambling for the kit. When he finds it, he opens it, roots around for cotton pads and bandages and scissors.  He crawls back over the seat, nearly knocking his head against a window.

“You could drive a little slower,” he shouts to Ricki.

“Can’t. Need to get there as fast as possible.”

“Where is _there_ , anyway?” Sherlock has completely stripped Peter’s jacket off and is starting on his shirt, the left shoulder and upper sleeve now soaked.

“Safe house,” Peter gasps out. “Safe house. **_Everyone_**.”

It’s a beat or two before Sherlock realises that Peter isn’t just answering his question.

He’s issuing instructions.

 

 ** _Safe house. Everyone_**.

When the order comes, something twists inside Fawn. Peter’s voice sounds breathless, strained. It doesn’t look good.  

She begins to dismantle the rifle, conscious all the while of the man looking out for her several stories below on an adjacent building.

“How bad?” she asks Ricki.

“Don’t know yet,” he answers, his voice raspy with tension. “Mr. Holmes `as `im. There’s a lot of blood.”

She flips the locks on the rifle case and slings it over her shoulder along with the rest of her gear. She crawls slowly along the parapet, careful that no part of her should be visible above it, making her way to the point where she’s set up her zip line.

 _Peter_. Her heart screams out his name. _  
_

Sherlock has ripped Peter’s shirt open, and is now pressing bandages against the wound to stanch the bleeding. Sherlock can’t find an exit wound, so either the bullet is still in there or he was just badly clipped.

“It’s still in there,” Peter says, as though reading his mind. “I can feel it.”

“It was a stupid risk to take,” Sherlock snarls at him.

“We’d _all_ be dead otherwise.”

“Ah. The needs of the many over the needs of the few,” Sherlock sneers, as he wraps the shoulder tightly with a long, wide strip of gauze. “How heroic. I’ll have to ask Mycroft to offer you a knighthood, I’m sure he has an inexhaustible supply, possibly in the pockets of his trousers.”

Peter doesn’t answer; he’s rapidly weakening from blood loss, the dressings on his wound turning bright crimson. Sherlock slaps him hard on the cheek and his eyelids fly open.

“You and I have unfinished business, Mr. Guillam,” Sherlock whispers furiously into his ear. “Kindly do me the courtesy of not dying until the matter is resolved.”

 

Moran’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he knows exactly who it is and why he’s calling. When he answers, the voice at the other end of the line quickly snaps at him.

“Who the hell is that other sniper?”

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “There’s only a dozen or so who can operate at this range, with that accuracy, in these conditions –“

“I don’t want you to marry him, Seb. I want you to kill him. Find him and _kill_ him.” He clicks off.

 

Moran moves quickly and stealthily from his position, staying low and in the shadows. It’s almost dawn now, the blue-black of night paling near the horizon. He scuttles toward the direction from where he believes the shots were fired. 

And then he hears it. A distinct sound, but one that he can’t quite place immediately. He bolts across the roof toward the sound, scans the surrounding buildings.

 _Wait_. That sound. It’s so familiar. Yes. The last time he heard it was at an army assault course. The sound of a body belt hooked on to a wheel harness on a rope.

 _A fucking zip line_. _At 25 or 26 fucking stories_.

He throws all caution to the wind, leans over the parapet, trains his rifle in the direction of the sound, and peers through the infrared sight.  At first, nothing. Then a tiny glint of light bouncing off metal.

 _There you are_. He smirks and he prepares to squeeze the trigger, but something’s off, something …

 _There’s only a dozen or so who can operate at this range, with that accuracy, in these conditions_.

Sebastian Moran is one of them. And he knows the rest of them – like him, they’re all ex-military or ex-special forces, from several countries.

All except one.

And it’s a woman.

He pushes aside his astonishment to line her up in his sight again,  then pulls the trigger. But it’s a fraction of a second too late, and she makes it to the other side safely, just as Moran’s bullet shears through the rope.

 

Fawn hears the shot even though it’s silenced, and the thin but heavy rope sings through the air after it snaps. She has just enough time to wriggle free of her body belt before the rope drags her off balance and sends her plummeting to the ground. She knows she has only seconds to spare before he tries again, so she dives low and crawls on her belly toward the rooftop exit.

She hears another shot and this time it hits dangerously close – too close, sending tiny bits of concrete flying up into her face.  In a crawl, her gear is slowing her down; she quickly decides to ditch the peripheral equipment and keep only the rifle. Another few seconds and she knows she has to make a run for it. She’s chosen this building because it’s abandoned and run-down.  The exit faces away from the tallest buildings around it, but there’s a few metres of open space to cross in order to get to it, and Moran will try to drop her when she does.

She’ll have to do something that he doesn’t expect.

 

Moran quickly calculates the distance between the parapet and the roof egress. He steadies his rifle so he can be ready when she tries to cover it on foot. He wants to get a good look at her face before he sends a bullet into her brain.

 _Come on, little birdy. Come to poppa_.

Movement down there: she’s slid her rifle case across the gap so that she can drag it over to her without exposing herself to his fire. _Oh-ho-ho-ho, you’re a smart little thing, aren’t you? You want me to waste a shot.  
_

Another set of quick calculations, her height, the point in the gap at which she would be most exposed. _No, you don't, sweetheart_. He waits.

And _there_ she is, off to a running start just as he had anticipated, and his finger is ready on the trigger. _Show me your face, little birdy_. But suddenly she lifts her arms and then somehow disappears from the sight just as he squeezes, and even from this distance he knows that the bullet has connected with empty air. _What the hell_? She reappears a split-second later to the right of his sight, quicksilver-fast to the exit where he can’t see her, before he can fire off another round. The rifle case slides toward her, and he fires on that, uselessly. And then she’s gone.

 _Damn. Damn, damn, damn_.

It takes him another few seconds to process what has just happened.

She jumped – No. She _vaulted_ off the ground and into a somersault.

Impossible.

 _Impossible_.

 

The van swings into an alley and disappears into a dark garage. Ricki jumps out, slides the door open for Sherlock and Peter. Suddenly there’s a minor swarm of people around them – men with guns, a few medical personnel with a gurney who attend to Peter at once. Sherlock is momentarily bewildered, until he sees both Mycroft and Smiley.

“Mycroft,” he barks at his brother. “Where is John? What’s happened?”

“Before you start setting fire to things, Sherlock, let me reassure you that he is unharmed.”

“I wasn’t intending to set fire to things, brother dear, although I had keenly anticipated slitting some throats. Yours, in particular.”

Smiley ignores the brothers’ caustic reunion and makes his way toward Peter. He peers down at the younger man, lying pale as a sheet on the gurney.

“Peter. How are you feeling, dear boy?” He clasps Peter's right hand.

“Honestly, George, I’ve had better days.”

The paramedic who’s examining the wound looks up at Smiley. “Bullet’s still lodged in there, Mr. Smiley, but he’ll make it.”

Peter looks up at him. “You’d better see to it that I do,” he mock-threatens. He and Smiley exchange glances, then Smiley nods for the medics to take Peter away.

The Holmes brothers’ bickering comes into focus again.

“— I demand to know where he is,” Sherlock says through clenched teeth.

“He is at a facility where he is receiving the best possible medical care.”

“Then take me to him.”

Smiley clears his throat. “I’m afraid that’s not the best course of action, Mr. Holmes. Until we find out why Mr. Moriarty has accelerated his attacks on you and Dr. Watson, it would be best not to have you both in the same location.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Smiley, your Mr. Guillam also requires medical care. Why not the best for him as well?” Sherlock seethes. “Or is this one of those  arbitrary decisions that the two of you make as you go along, just to _annoy_ me?”

“Yes, Sherlock,” Mycroft sighs wearily. “George and I are actually _paid_ by the British government to annoy you. Indeed, we live for nothing else and, if truth be told, it is the sole delight of our arid, joyless existence. Now stop sulking and come along. We have work to do.”

“I’m not moving a centimetre until you tell me where John is.”

“He is at a safe house in Brixton,” Smiley says. “Two of my best men are heading the team guarding him, and I can assure you that no one from Moriarty’s gang will be able to come near him.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Your best men? From what I gather, one has a bullet in his shoulder, one is good for nothing but driving armoured postal vans and one remains incommunicado, possibly high on ozone.”

“Mendel is retired Special Branch, and Westerby is career Circus,” Smiley says patiently, in his quiet, soothing voice. “You haven't met them. But I promise you that Dr. Watson is in good hands.” He looks straight into Sherlock’s eyes, blue meeting grey, and Sherlock takes a deep breath.

“All right. The faster we get this over and done with, the sooner I can get to John.”

 

When Moran enters the room, Jim doesn’t even bother to look at him. He’s tapping away at his computer, engrossed in what appear to be 3-D blueprints of the warheads that they’re delivering to the Vietnamese in 48 hours.

“I’ll get her next time,” Moran says, as though picking up from a conversation that is already under way.

“ _Her_? Seb, I’m disappointed. And frankly, a little bit – _embarrassed_ for you. What _will_ the other snipers in the Big Boy Snipers' Club say?”

Moran crosses the room to stand by an open window; not directly in front of it, but off to the side, where he can’t be seen from the outside. Force of habit.

“I told you there weren’t many people who operate at that skill level, in those conditions. I know every single one of them, on our side or the other's. Except one. The one they call _Fantasma_ , ‘the phantom’. The one responsible for the hit on the Chinese vice-consul in Hong Kong. That Triad boss in Taipei. The Russian general, Tikhonenko.”

Jim shoves away from the desk, his chair rolling along the wooden floor on casters. “Yes, yes,” he says mockingly. “`Who _was_ that masked man?’, and all that. I really don’t care.”

“You should,” Moran says. “The woman – the sniper – I’ve seen her before, I just can’t remember … but I think I know her.”

“It’s a small world, Sebby.” Jim stands, walks over to Moran, sets his chin on the older man’s left shoulder. “Did you have a schoolboy crush on her? Was that why you couldn’t pull the trigger?”

Moran jerks his shoulder up hard, forcing Jim to pull away quickly. “I _did_ pull the trigger. But I missed. I missed because she executed a flip. A forward somersault.  It was over in seconds but it threw off my aim.”

“Doesn’t matter, Seb. Our Russian friend is not pleased with the way our little operation turned out. Sherlock Holmes should have been taken easily. Now we don’t know where he is, and we don’t have the cheese we need to trap him either.” Jim wrinkles his nose in disgust. “His pocket pet of an army doctor.”

Moran shrugs. “You can’t blame that one on me. I warned you that the Circus had gotten involved. You should have anticipated that the security detail on Watson would have been completely overhauled.”

Jim blinks up at him, his black eyes glittering like nuggets of polished obsidian. “But I'm not blaming you, Seb. _Sebby_.” He puts his hands on Moran’s shoulders, squeezes them heartily. “ _Sebbyyyyy_. This is _me_. Jim. I just want you to do well. _To be the best that you can be_.”

He lets go just as abruptly. “Now go away and find your wee phantom sniper. See if she’ll lead us to Sherlock Holmes.”

Moran knows when he’s dismissed, and he leaves without another word.

When the door swings closed, Jim picks up the phone.

“Karla, _darling_ ,” he purrs. “I think it’s time you and I had a little heart-to-heart.”


	10. The Mills of God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Soviet spymaster Karla has been forced deeper into an uneasy alliance with James Moriarty. And he is running out of time to carry out his real objective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title references, of course, Longfellow's "Retribution". 
> 
> With great apologies to le Carré for mangling Karla and the rest of his work, albeit with great love and admiration.

He still can’t see her face.

There are angry red circles on her wrist, raw and ragged where they’re handcuffed to the bedposts.  He likes to trace the firm, clean line of muscles in her arms and down her back with a knife tip, sometimes drawing blood.  She’s different, this one; even when she’s plainly terrified, she possesses a core of detachment, as though a part of her accepts that this is inescapable and there is nothing else to be done but to observe and record.

He registers this detachment as defiance.

He grabs a generous fistful of her hair and pushes her head down into a pillow, holds it firmly there while he drives deeper into her.  Her opening is slick with her fluid and his, with blood and sweat and spunk, and he slides into her mindlessly, savagely, letting her small, wiry body bear his full weight, feeling her skull through her thick black hair and her burning hot scalp with the palm of his hand. She struggles to breathe; he’s madly excited by how her body responds to invasion below and suffocation above.  The handcuffs cut deeper and the blood runs in slow rivulets from her thin wrists and it’s all so **_beautiful_** , her blood and her sex and the life fluttering inside her like a dying bird.  

When he comes, he bites deep into her shoulder. It’s the last thing she feels.

He knows she’s dead but he lies on top of her a while, spent. When he grows limp, he pulls out and lies beside her.

“You should have waited till I was finished,” he chides her softly, as though it's her fault.  He reaches out to brush the hair away from her dead face.

Her eyes are open, and they aren’t human: completely black, glistening, weeping oily black tears.

Moran wakes with a start, filled with revulsion and horror, even as his cock twitches, painfully hard in his boxers. He’s drenched in sweat despite the cold of the room.

But the dream’s given him something to work with.

He lies back, pulls his boxers down and kicks them off, grasping himself, working his cock with practised efficiency. He closes his eyes, follows the thread of memory, back through years and countries and conflicts, past countless faces, the living and the dead, men, women, children, their clothes, their voices, their skin and scars and scents. Fingers faster, rougher on himself now, closing in on the goal. Romania, a bed in a room, he’s her first, he wants to break this one in himself, before she’s fed to the rest of the wolves. She’s fifteen, she fights like the devil, she’s quiet like a mute, yet her silent rage is more deafening than all the screams he’s heard in this room put together.

Yes, so close now, he thrusts vigorously into his own hand. It’s a few months later, she’s been passed around like a tray of hors d’oeuvres; with her youth and her unusual features, she fetches a high price. She’s fooled them all into thinking she’s broken, but she’s not: she’s cunning, she escapes. He hunts her down relentlessly: in the city where she hides like a rat in the sewers. In the crumbling factories where the great machine of the Soviet empire has already begun its inevitable slide into decay. In the collective farms where she thinks she might be able to disappear, but quickly finds that she cannot trust anyone. Where knowledge of her presence is a commodity to be traded for food or money or any kind of meagre privilege.

It takes months but he hunts her down into the black hills and dense forests where she runs, starving, cold, barefoot, half-dead but still so very defiant. Down finally to the edge of one of the rock walls that line the Danube.  

The pressure in his balls almost unbearable now, he’s aching and frantic, follow that thread, just seconds away. __

_Nobody runs away from me without paying for it, one way or another._ _Now turn around and face me._

He finally sees her, and those huge black eyes are filled with an even blacker hate.  Then she hurls herself over the edge and vanishes into the dark waters.

The thread ends here.

He says her name – her real name -- when he comes.

 

The man called Karla takes the letter that has been lying open on his desk, and reads it again. It was intercepted from the sender three days ago; it’s the third such letter in the last month. The second, sent about three weeks before, is also in his possession. The first is not; it has obviously found its way to its intended recipient: the man named Sherlock Holmes.

These letters are the reason that Karla has been forced even deeper into a long-standing, uneasy alliance with James Moriarty, setting off a chain of events whose outcome he cannot predict and can only try to control.

He sets the letter down and reflects on his earlier conversation with Moriarty. After the fiasco at Baker Street, the mad Irishman immediately knew that the stakes in the game were much higher than Karla had initially let on. He knows, now, that the sale of the warheads is a smokescreen. He has demanded to know Karla’s real objectives. Already he’s been nibbling at the edges of the truth, and left the Soviet spymaster with no choice but to tell him.

Karla had anticipated that Moriarty would find the truth trivial and boring, and indeed, he does; but he’s canny enough to recognise that it is nevertheless a matter of grave consequence in this tedious war of ideologies. Moreover, he has a weakness, and that weakness is Sherlock Holmes. And Karla has a well-developed talent for exploiting weaknesses.

He has always found Moriarty’s voice terribly annoying: sing-song, mocking, falsely intimate.  Still, he’s the best – indeed, the only -- option available to him now. He cannot use his own agents; trained by him to be rabid and unshakable in their fanaticism, they would flay him alive if they learned his real intentions.

Had he been able to foresee the consequences all those years ago, he would never have allowed himself to succumb to temptation. But of course, he had, and now he has no choice but to rely on this madman.

Karla takes a Gauloise from a pack and lights up. They’re his favourite and his only real vice these days. He’s oddly sparing in their use despite being a chain-smoker, even though a man in his position can very well afford to burn through them like acid on silk. All those years spent in a Siberian prison taught him that everything is temporary, that comfort and security are illusions, that nothing can be taken for granted.  He lives like a monk, eats little, hardly drinks except in company and when necessary to keep up appearances. His body -- small, spare, virtually devoid of any excess fat -- is a testament to his rigid asceticism and self-control.

He smokes in silence as he considers the man who’s been called the greatest criminal mind the world has ever seen. Well, he is less than impressed. Not because Moriarty isn’t every bit as brilliant as he’s reputed to be, because he is. No: it’s because that astonishing intellect is wasted on mere _entertainment_.

Karla is just old-fashioned enough to believe that, like all resources – men, money, influence, arms – prodigious intellect unguided by any worthwhile purpose is useless and sterile.

He can’t help but compare Moriarty with his great adversary on the other side of the battle lines: a man so tragic that he’s become comical, yet a man of hidden and dangerous gifts. From that one encounter with George Smiley in Delhi a lifetime ago, he had known that this portly, unremarkable, almost _faceless_ civil servant would be the man against whom he would measure all other future allies and enemies: for their resolve, their intellect, their weaknesses and their courage.

George Smiley may not have James Moriarty’s searing intelligence, but Karla believes him to be far more dangerous. Only a man who’s been so thoroughly defeated truly sees and respects the potential for defeat in every undertaking. If this world made any sense at all, Smiley would be fighting at Karla’s side.

Even now he knows that the head of the Circus is seeking answers from the young Mr. Holmes – another formidable intellect hamstrung by a limited understanding of human nature and the arrogance born of a merely passing acquaintance with failure.  The Holmeses and the Moriartys of this world are like the deluge that drowns everything in its path. But it’s the Smileys that drip slowly upon the rock, minute by minute, year after year, and gradually wear it down to nothing. He will persist in his thorough, plodding way, and he will eventually learn the truth. Karla only hopes that he can do what he needs to do before Smiley inevitably arrives at the correct conclusion.

Smoke and mirrors.  All the tricks and diversions and deceptions in this unending, wearying game.

The cigarette is spent and he grinds it into the ashtray.  He tries to fight off the growing sense that a day of retribution is coming.

 

Sherlock is pacing this dull, cramped office like a caged beast, and Mycroft can feel his patience with his brother wearing down to the thinness of gossamer. He glances over at Smiley, who is sitting at the other side of the desk, motionless and unreadable. _If he weren’t breathing, he might be mistaken for part of the furniture_ , Mycroft thinks to himself.

He turns to his brother. “There is a reason he’s acted now. They obviously think you know something.”

“I think we’ve clearly established that the matter of the warheads had nothing to do with me.”

“Nevertheless, we’ll need to look at all of your recent cases.”

Sherlock scoffs at his brother. “That’s ridiculous, nearly all of my recent cases have been thrown my way by Moriarty himself, one after the other. “

Smiley finally stirs in his seat, but the movement is so small it’s virtually unnoticeable. “Nearly?”

“Well, _obviously_ there were others,” Sherlock says, waving long fingers near his head as though brushing away mosquitoes. “Not nearly as important, though.”

Smiley looks up at him, and the Holmes brothers see something quietly burning behind those owlish glasses.  

“I need to know about those _others_ , Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock studies him for a moment. There is something about George Smiley that quiets him, makes him somehow reassess his positions. The Circus chief is so unlike Mycroft in this; even his brother’s best-intentioned acts only anger him and harden his resolve, and yet Smiley, so placid in his nature as to be almost inert, can persuade him with one sentence.

Suddenly, Sherlock is reminded of John.

He turns to Mycroft. “Send your minions down to the flat. I’ll need my notes and correspondence.”

 

Peter drifts in and out of consciousness in the first few hours.  The wound turns out to be not as serious as it had first seemed. It will take him a while to heal, but there is no major damage. For now he’s content to let the drugs take hold and bear him far away.

In a twilight moment of semi-consciousness, he becomes dimly aware of Fawn crouching on top of a tall cabinet, watching over him in the semi-darkness.

“Come down from there,” he says, or thinks he says.

When she doesn’t move, he decides that he’s simply dreaming, and sinks back into sleep.

 

The facility they’re at turns out to be a small hive of offices and sleeping quarters, with a rudimentary communications centre and a clinic: everything a Circus agent might need if circumstances required him or her to go to ground. While they wait for Sherlock’s case notes and mail, he’s insisted on exploring the place.

 In particular, he has asked to see Peter; but he’s knocked out from the drugs when the detective stops by. After a few moments, he slips quietly back out the door, but not before swiping Peter’s cigarettes and a box of matches from a small table beside his bed.

He’s picked up a scent from inside the room: gunpowder residue and sweat and unscented soap.  He follows the trail now, down a long corridor into what looks to be an empty conference room.

It’s not really empty. She’s up on a wide window ledge, in her customary position. They don’t look at each other, but they’re fully aware of each other’s presence.

Sherlock shakes a cigarette out of the pack. He lights up, takes a long drag, blows a line of smoke into the air.

"You and Guillam," he begins.

Her silence. _What about us?_

"You're his subordinate. But you have a great deal of -- influence on him."

_We've known each other a long time._

He casts a sidelong glance at her. "You're in love with him."

_He's gay._

"And yet."

She sighs.

 _The question was settled a long time ago_.

Sherlock takes another drag on the cigarette. "How do you stand it, then? Working beside him, day in and day out. So near to what you want but knowing you'll never have it." He flicks ash off the tip. "Of course. Sentiment.” Each syllable is heavy with distaste. “Makes fools of people."

She leaps silently from the window ledge. "You assume that sentiment keeps me where I am. Sentiment for Peter." She takes the cigarette from his fingers, studies its smouldering tip, takes a drag on it, then blows out a series of perfect smoke rings. “It isn’t.”

He watches the rings float up and dissolve into nothing. "For Smiley, then. You’d kill and die for him."

She looks at the cigarette and grimaces at it, as though she hadn’t had it in between her own lips just seconds before. She drops it on the floor and crushes it with her foot.

 _Smoking is bad for you_.

"I wasn't done with that."

She shrugs. _You are now_. She starts to walk away.

 "Well, what is it, then, if not sentiment?" he calls out impatiently, and he’s taken aback when she starts to laugh. "What? What is so funny?"

 She turns to look at him. "Peter says you have a colourful name for me."

Sherlock takes a deep breath, then smirks. " _Acrophiliac spider-monkey_."

She nods. "Good one. Think about that. Then reconsider your question."

“Ah.” Sherlock's eyes close as understanding comes. "It's not that you don't want to leave. It's that you have nowhere else to go."

She’s looking outside the window, at something that Sherlock can’t see.

_I do. Just one other place. But not just yet._

She's gone before he can ask another question.

 

The day wears on into the night, and the three men study Sherlock’s cases, looking for leads.  But every path leads to a dead end, and Sherlock is practically climbing the walls in frustration. “There’s nothing here, Mycroft, can’t you see, it’s all so pointless, you need to let me see John now.”

“I would be endangering him needlessly if I did so, brother,” Mycroft says, his eyes ringed with deepening circles. His clothes, usually so crisp and immaculate, are now slightly creased and limp; he’s thrown off his jacket and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.

Smiley, rumpled and wrinkled from the beginning, is no worse for wear after these long hours.  He turns to look at one corner of the large work table.

“We haven’t yet checked your unopened correspondence, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock walks back to the table, shuffles through the envelopes. “Nothing. Nothing. Bills. Nothing. Bills. _Wait_.”

He studies the envelope and the writing on it. “Common office envelope, nothing remarkable there. Woman’s handwriting. The angle and pressure suggest extreme stress -- very likely, fear. Sent several weeks ago, so it would appear that the timetable is off.”

Mycroft sighs. “Stop showing off, Sherlock, and read the letter.”

Sherlock glares at his brother but does what he says, carefully opening the envelope and laying its contents on the table so that the other two men can read along with him.

The woman calls herself Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova. She says she is an émigré from the Soviet Union: a defector. She has a daughter whom she has left behind, and she’s been told of a way that the girl can be allowed to join her.  But now she knows it’s all been a sham, and now, for reasons she can’t even begin to understand, she is being followed. She fears for her life and begs Sherlock to help her.

When they all finish reading, the brothers both turn to Smiley.

“Mr. Holmes, I think we may have found what we’ve been looking for.”


	11. The Limits of Secrecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Smiley begin to unravel a secret that the chief of Moscow centre is keeping, as Fawn draws inexorably closer to a moment of reckoning with Moran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I should take this opportunity to remind everyone who's been following this WIP that while I'm liberally borrowing from both the ACD/BBC Sherlock and the TTSS film/book verses, none of this story will be canon-compliant. Thanks for taking the time to read -- we're getting close!
> 
> Also, my schoolroom Spanish is rusty from decades of disuse, so if there are any infelicities in its use, please don't hesitate to flag it up to me.)

It’s funny how you learn someone over the years, their little habits, the things they like or dislike, sometimes even the things they think at the exact moment they think it.  George Smiley learns people very well indeed. Even his wife, although that might surprise anyone who knows about her. Most of them assume that he hasn’t seen any of it coming: the flirtations, the untruths, the nights she has spent in beds other than their own. Their assumptions are all wrong, of course. Smiley had seen these things coming long before even Ann did, seen the wreck of their marriage perhaps even before the train had left the station, its sad inevitability looming ever closer, the burden of it heavier with each passing year. 

At this moment, this lull before the storm, as he pours himself a cup of ghastly safehouse coffee in the semi-darkness of this room, he sees another inevitability fast approaching.

"Come down from there, my dear, and let me have a look at you."

She does as he bids, swooping down from the ledge of the windows in the far corner of the room. She hops up on the table behind him, and sits with her hands under her thighs, swinging her legs like a child.

“I have not seen you in weeks.” Smiley turns to her. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then tilts her chin up, observing her face. "And I do not like the look of _that_ one bit," he says quietly, a note of warning in his voice.

She shrugs. _I'm just tired, that's all._

"Hmmm." He pats her cheek gently, then turns away. "Control might have had something to say about that, if he were here."

_Like what?_

"Like ` _ _you're a terrible liar, Fawn_.'_ "

She stops swinging her legs and goes very, very still.

 _I'm not lying_.

Smiley heaves himself into an upholstered chair of surpassing ugliness. "I was worried about you," he says, pausing to sip his coffee. "After you sent those photographs from the rooftop. I've been worried about you ever since."

_Unnecessary._

He sets his cup down on a low table beside him, then proceeds to clean his glasses with his tie. "Control was very fond of you. Called you his perfect little soldier. We used to disagree, you know, about your training. Not big disagreements. I used to tell him you needed a more normal life. Friends. Parties. Maybe a nice chap, when the time came."

 _I know_.

"I was concerned that he drove you too hard, but he said it was you. Said that you didn't want any of that nonsense, out there in the real world. _Making tea and killing_ , he used to say.  _That's what Fawn's good at_."

"But you see, I'd always hoped to find some middle ground for you, my dear." He leans forward now, hands clasped together across his knees. "Somewhere between the tea and the killing. And that if I found it, you might like it there."

She hops off the table, moves to stand in front of him.

_You worry too much, Mr. Smiley._

 "But I can see now that this was beyond him, or me. Wasn't it, my dear? Two old men, foolish enough -- arrogant enough -- to think that we could decide for you."  He looks up at her. "When you'd already decided for yourself."

The room is suddenly flooded with light from the windows, the headlights of a car swinging into the driveway outside. Fawn’s head turns like a bird does, following the light.

 _That’ll be Ricki_.

She holds out both her hands and Smiley, who’s sunk too deep into the slack, pulpy bowels of the chair, gratefully grasps them and hauls himself up with her help to a standing position.  The car’s headlights have been switched off, and there’s only the glow of a solitary lamp in the room to bounce off Smiley’s glasses.

“The thing is, my dear, I rather enjoy having you around.”

They stand holding each other’s hands for a while, looking at each other.

Then they hear a car door opening and closing, and Fawn lets go, stepping aside respectfully to let him pass.

_Good night, Mr. Smiley._

He nods, walks toward the door, then pauses without looking back.

"Goodbye, Fawn."

 

When Smiley steps out, he sees Sherlock standing by the car. Ricki runs up to him.

“He said he wanted to come with us, Mr. Smiley,” he whispers. “I said it wasn’t up to me.”

Smiley nods, pats Ricki on the shoulder, then turns to Sherlock. “Mr. Holmes –“

“Yes, I do, and no, I won’t.  We’ll get to the truth faster if I’m present when you speak with Madame Ostrakova. After all, she contacted _me_.” The detective’s face is grim, his mouth set in a hard line, every muscle of his body drawn taut as a wire. Smiley knows he’s near his breaking point; if he’s thwarted any further, he’ll do something rash, place himself far beyond the protection that his brother and the Circus can provide. And this will only create further problems at a time when they can’t afford any more distractions.

“Come along, then,” he says, touching Sherlock’s arm lightly as he passes. “Into the car with you.”

 

The moment Fawn arrives at her tiny flat, she knows that something is wrong.

The sliver of cardboard is still wedged between the door and the frame – an old habit she picked up from Smiley – but she can sense the disturbance in the air behind the door.  

She slides down the hall to Mrs. Zaldivar’s flat; it’s almost dawn and she would have had to leave for work very early. The kids will be having breakfast and watching television by themselves. The youngest, four-year old Carlitos, opens the door,  with the eldest, 13-year old Chucha, right behind him. He flashes Fawn a glorious little gap-toothed smile, even though he’s clearly still very sleepy. She puts a finger to her lips as she enters the flat and locks the door behind her.  Carlitos holds out his arms for a hug and she gives it to him, lifting him up and carrying him into the living room where the middle child, six-year old Manuel, is eating cereal. He smiles up at her in surprise.

Fawn turns and speaks to the girl, keeping her voice steady so as not to alarm the younger ones.

“ _Tengo que_ _usar su balcón_.”

Chucha nods, leads the way to her mother’s bedroom, draws the curtain and opens the large windows. All large dark eyes and seriousness and vigilance, she’s a child grown up too fast; she’s been through two ugly divorces, an abusive stepfather and more moves from one neighbourhood to another then she can count, and is now co-parenting her brothers. Fawn knows she can be relied on, but she would not have involved them if she had any other alternative.

She deposits the sleepy Carlitos in his sister’s arms.

“ _Quédate aquí_ _. Mantén la puerta cerrada. Si te oyes algo, no salgas. ¿Entiendes?_ _”_

The girl nods.

“ _Cierre la ventana después de que salga_.”

She nods again.

Fawn slips out the window.  As she assesses the considerable distance between this tiny balcony and her own, she’s aware of Chucha sticking her head out. She glances back at the young girl.

“ _Demasiado lejos_?”

She nods solemnly, brow creased with concern, and Fawn smiles gently at her.

“ _No te preocupes_ _. Yo sé lo que estoy haciendo. Ve adentro ahora._”

The girl retreats and closes the window as she’s been told. Fawn waits, then clambers up onto the railing, balanced precariously on the narrow metal tube. She takes a moment to centre herself, find her equilibrium.

Somehow, her body always remembers what it’s supposed to do. She leaps onto her own balcony, managing just in time to grasp the railing with her hands. Catching her breath, she waits for any sign of movement in the bedroom; then she climbs over the rail.

She listens at the open window then looks in; this is definitely how he came in, and he’s still here. There’s no question in her mind who it is. She climbs into the room, not making a sound.

He’s left her closet doors, the drawers in her bureau open; some of her underwear is lying on the floor where he left it, and some of her clothes as well. The bed, neatly made before she left several days ago, has been unmade, the bedclothes ripped from the mattress, the pillows displaced.

She hears a voice and footsteps coming toward the bedroom now, and she quickly dives underneath the bed.

That hated voice.

_So you’re saying the almighty chief of Moscow Centre couldn’t hire two professionals to properly deal with a middle-aged woman._

No question in her mind as to who’s on the other end of the line.

_They probably already know about her.  And you know what happens next, don’t you?_

_All right, let me pick up my gear and I’ll head there straightaway._

_Where am I now?_

Even without seeing him, she knows he’s looking around the bedroom at the mess he’s made.

 _Just visiting an old friend_.

She lies very still, watches the shadow cross the room, moving toward the window. She waits until she's satisfied that he's gone.

And then she follows him.

 

When the woman answers the door, she does so cautiously, opening it a mere crack and leaving the chain hooked in its place.

“Madame Ostrakova?” Smiley asks, in as unthreatening a voice and manner as he can manage.

“Who are you?”

Sherlock steps forward from behind Smiley. “My name is Sherlock Holmes, you wrote to me several weeks ago.”

She studies his face carefully, then closes the door; they hear the chain being unhooked and then she opens the door again, glancing up and down the corridor fearfully. Smiley and Sherlock now see that she has a deep cut on her lip and a large purple-black bruise on her left cheek. She waves them inside quickly, locks the door, replaces the chain. 

She’s walking with difficulty, her arms cradling, shielding the area underneath her breasts.

“They came after you,” Sherlock says.

She looks up at him. “Two men. Yesterday. “

Sherlock takes in her pallor, the look of pain that crosses her face with every movement.  “They tried to kill you. Force you onto the path of an oncoming vehicle. But you fought back. They were clumsy, and there were witnesses, so they withdrew.”

Her eyes widen in surprise and amazement. “Yes! Yes, that is exactly what happened. How did you know?”

He ignores the question. “You have two, possibly three cracked ribs. You came directly to this flat after you were attacked, and you haven’t left it since, not even to go to hospital. You're afraid they'll try again.” He looks around the room. "Heavy iron in a bag in the corner, kitchen knife in the right-hand pocket of your cardigan. You expect them to come for you right here in your own home."

Tears are forming in her eyes now, and she moves closer to him. “I wrote to you.” She pressed her hands to his chest, a gesture of supplication. “Three times, I wrote. But you never answered.”

Now it’s his turn to be surprised. “Three? I received only one letter. I have been quite preoccupied these past few weeks and only managed to read it last night.”

Smiley frowns. “Then the other two are likely to have been intercepted. That would explain the escalation of the attacks.” He turns to the woman. “When did you write and send the last letter?”

“Four, perhaps five days ago. I dropped it in the letter box on the corner.”

Sherlock and Smiley exchange glances; this means that she is being watched. Once again, they're reminded that there’s no time to lose.

“Come, Madame Ostrakova, sit down,” Smiley instructs her, gently leading her toward the shabby brown couch in the living room.  “We need to find out all we can about your situation.”

She spends about an hour telling them, tearfully, of the daughter she left behind in the Soviet Union, Alexandra.  She tells them of the mysterious man named Kursky who approaches her, telling her that there might be a way to bring the girl to the West, on humanitarian grounds. She tells them her heart lifts at the thought of seeing her child again after so many years. She applies for citizenship for Alexandra; but eventually, the man disappears, and there’s no further word about her daughter.

Sherlock turns to Smiley. “Someone must have tried to use her story for cover. It’s the only logical explanation.” The look on Smiley’s face tells the detective that an idea is coalescing in his mind. “You know something.”

Smiley shakes his head. “Not yet. I need more information, and I know someone who has it.” He rises, excuses himself to make a telephone call. He makes his way to the kitchen of the flat, draws his mobile phone from one of his coat pockets. He’s about to punch in a few numbers when it rings.

“Yes?”

“It’s me.” Peter sounds much better, stronger and more alert. “Where is everyone?”

 “We think we’ve found a lead, Peter,” Smiley says. “The real reason why Moriarty came after them again.”

He hears Peter draw in a deep breath. “Is Holmes with you?”

“Yes. How are you feeling?”

“It hurts like hell, but the boredom is worse.”

“Peter, it’s only been about 24 hours.”

“The doctors say it looks much more serious than it actually is. I’m terribly sore, and I know I’ll be kicking myself at the end of the day. But I can get around.”

“I would really rather you didn’t, my boy.  You should be resting.”

“ _George_.” There’s a note of pleading in Peter’s voice now. “You _need_ everyone on the ground. You can’t afford to spare a single one of us, not at this time. Give me something easy to do, if you like. But I refuse to be spared.”

Sherlock appears in the doorway.

“Tell him he’s being stupid,” he tells the older man coldly.

Smiley turns away from the detective. In a low voice, he says, “Peter, I don’t think –“

“Please, George.”

He sighs. “Very well. Get someone to drive you up to the Circus. Find Connie. Tell her I need everything she knows about Karla.”

“All right. Anything specific you’re looking for?”

“Ask her if she remembers any rumours about a mistress.” Smiley looks at Sherlock.  “And a _daughter_.”


	12. The Sins of the Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karla knows that all secrets eventually see the light of day. As Smiley, Sherlock and Peter uncover his, Mycroft Holmes must walk the thin and treacherous line between protecting his younger brother and maintaining the delicate balance of global power. And Moriarty carries his obsession with Sherlock to dangerous new heights.

 

Jim Moriarty has an itch, and not a day goes by that he does not want to scratch it.

The itch is a little over six feet tall, slender as a reed, beautiful in a strange, unearthly way.

The itch has a mind that Jim covets: a mirror image of his own, vast and deep, lightning-fast, a miracle of human evolution.

The itch is always just far enough out of Jim’s reach that he can see it, sense it, but never quite touch it or feel it. Certainly never own it or control it. And at least once a day, Jim asks himself, where is he? What is he doing right at this very moment? What is he _thinking_?

 _Bête_ _noire/bien aimé._

He can’t resist it, the gravitational force that pulls him toward Sherlock Holmes. He picks up the phone, dials the number.

“Yes.”

 _That voice_. That voice explodes in his consciousness like the pure, sweet, almost sexual hit of an illicit drug. He closes his eyes to savour it, to feel it sliding around in his brain, slipping in between the folds, cold and densely liquid like spilled mercury.

“Whoever you are, don’t waste my time.”

“Hello, my dear,” Jim sing-songs in greeting. “You've been very naughty, playing with the other kids behind my back. I'm _crushed_.”

 

At Madame Ostrakova’s flat, Sherlock turns away from Smiley and walks out of the kitchen, toward a small alcove in the living room.

“Yes. Well. I’ve had more important things on my mind of late than catering to the whims of a madman.”

“That’s the problem with you, Sherlock,” Jim clucks at him. “You know what you are, but you don’t see that you could be so much more. You are far too easily contented. Can’t you see? In ancient times, you and I would have been worshipped as gods."

"Then the twenty-first century must be such a letdown for you."  Sherlock senses movement behind him; when he turns, Smiley is several feet away, keeping a respectful distance but also alert to any sign of further trouble. “At any rate, I don’t care to be worshipped, it’s far too much responsibility."

"You delude yourself, Sherlock. Can’t you see? We could lay the world to waste at our feet."

"Given my aversion to housekeeping of any kind, I really would prefer a rather orderly world."

"On the contrary. You are _singularly devoted_ to housekeeping, my dear. In case you hadn’t noticed, you are, in fact, London's housekeeper. The Commonwealth's housekeeper. And now possibly even the world's. You should put your hair up in a bun and wear sensible shoes.”

"Is there a point to this conversation, or do you just like to hear yourself talking?"

Jim cackles into the phone for a while, but when it’s over, his voice is dead serious. "I should warn you about your Mr. Smiley, my dear boy. Ordinary people can be so disappointing. They never really see the big picture, and they’ll always let you down."

Sherlock glances up at the older man, and immediately Smiley senses he’s become part of the conversation. It’s confirmed a second or two later when Sherlock says, "Hmmm. That tells me that you don't know very much about George Smiley."

"I know enough."

"You really don't. Clearly your Russian patron has been keeping things from you."

Jim’s voice changes ever so slightly, a trace of defensiveness creeping into it. "I know everything I need to know."

It’s Sherlock’s turn to taunt him. "If that were true, you might have a radically different opinion of Mr. Smiley. Your Karla is obviously a master at keeping secrets, even from you. Now if you have nothing of real importance to say to me –“

Jim waits a moment, then fires his parting shot.

“Give my regards to Madame Ostrakova, will you?” Then he rings off.

Sherlock pockets his phone; when he looks at Smiley, his face is grim. He keeps his voice low so that the woman can’t hear. “Moriarty knows about her. He knows we’re here. We’ve got to get her out.

Smiley nods, but the look on his face is not too encouraging. “This could take a while.”

 

The footsteps stop outside her door, but the person doesn’t knock. Whoever it is, is arguing with himself whether or not he should even be down here. _Typical_ , Connie thinks. _All these overgrown boys playing at grown-up games_.  She knocks back a fifth of scotch, sets the glass down with a thump beside the microfilm reader, then bellows out: “You might as well come in, darling, unless you’re merely _pissing_ at my door. In which case, I expect you to mop up before you leave.”

The door finally creaks open, and it’s Peter, looking simultaneously abashed and defiant.

“Connie,” he says. He steps into the room hesitantly, closes the door behind him.

“Peter, dear,” she says, rolling her chair away from the desk in one smooth motion. “You’ve come to brighten my gloomy little cave. Lovely tie, is that new?” It’s said in jest, because the tie is awful.

His fingers are touching the borrowed tie self-consciously before he can stop himself. “It’s – no, I’ve had …” Connie – big, bright, brazen Connie – has an horrific and well-practised talent for making one feel completely ill at ease.  “George sent me,” he says finally.

She’s quick to notice his discomfort, and even quicker to play on it. “Where _is_ my dear George? He’s so kind to send someone to visit. I’m the rat in the basement nobody wants to talk about, let alone see.”

“You’re hardly a rat, Connie.” Peter glances around the room, at the massive shelves groaning under the weight of microfilm reels, microfiche, boxes upon boxes of aperture cards and photographs and files. Most of them are decades old, some dating back to the early days of both the Cold War and the commercialisation of microfilm technology.  The bulk of them have been converted to digital format, but Connie likes to keep the originals anyway; somehow, they give her the sense of a stronger connection to the past. But Christ, the sheer weight of them: he can almost feel it physically whenever he comes here, the burden of operations drawn up and plans set in motion and decisions that have changed the course of entire countries. It’s a burden that Connie Sachs, with her encyclopaedic memory and her obsession with the minutiae of the great tides of history, bears willingly, and at great price.

The thought of spending years in this dreary hole makes Peter feel ill, and he suddenly becomes aware that the wound in his shoulder is throbbing. He sways a little and braces himself against a shelf, trying to act nonchalant about it and failing completely.

“Ooh, you’re not well, are you, my pretty little chicken?” The concern couldn’t be more genuine, even though it’s expressed in that cloying, motherly way that grates on him like sandpaper underpants.  She moves quickly, dragging a chair over to where he is standing, and watching as he shakily sinks onto it. She takes a good, long look at him, and suddenly understands why he’s wearing his jacket with one sleeve on, one sleeve off.

“Darling Peter. Those aren’t your clothes, you always wear such lovely clothes. Those don’t fit right and they don’t look right. So the ones you were wearing must have been a right mess. When did it happen?”

“Just ... yesterday.”

She gasps in dismay. “But you shouldn’t be up and about yet! Oh, he’s a bad one. Naughty, naughty George!”

He holds up a hand. “George didn’t want me to. I insisted.”

She shakes her head disapprovingly. “Well, then. Naughty, naughty Peter. You boys run yourselves ragged, it’s just not right. Are you in pain?”

“I’ve got meds for that.  Connie, we don’t have much time. George wants everything you have on Karla.”

She frowns in confusion. “But dear old George knows everything we have on Karla. _Everything_.”

“He wants to know what you remember about – certain rumours. Something about a mistress, and a daughter.”

“Oh!” Connie’s eyes widen, and then a slow smile spreads over her plump, sallow face. “I know exactly what you need.”

 

After he ends his conversation with Sherlock, Jim decides it’s time for another chat with the chief of Moscow Centre. He dials the man’s private line.

Karla's voice is deep, and he always speaks the overly formal, if heavily accented English of someone who respects the language after having taken great pains to learn it. “Mr. Moriarty.”

“Karla, dear. So nice of you to take my call. I think we may have a problem.”

The other man waits, and Jim continues. “Our little ploy with the warheads has lost steam, I’m afraid. My boys in the field say they’ve been passed on to second-stringers. The Yanks are directing operations, but they no longer have boots on the ground.”

Karla remains silent. “Meanwhile, I’ve got the world’s only consulting detective and the head of the Circus pinned inside the flat of a certain Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova. I don’t suppose I need to explain this to you, but the fact that they’re there at all means that –“

“You are correct.”

“I am?”

“You do not need to explain this to me.”

Jim is mildly offended, but then again he has the means to needle the man, and he does. “I guess you’ll have to move quickly on your plans for little Tatiana.”

“She is not so little any more.” A pause. “I am suspending the operation.”

Jim raises an eyebrow. “ _Really_?” Oh, all these little people, with their little lives and their petty concerns. Pathetic. “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to help you, Karla. I’m rather miffed to find out that the head of Moscow Centre could spook so easily.”

“I am quite certain that ordinary people like me routinely disappoint you, Mr. Moriarty.  You should be used to it by now. You will be compensated well; you always have been. But as of now, this operation is suspended.”

The older man hangs up, but Jim hangs on to the phone, seething.

“Your operation, Karla, darling. Not _mine_.”

 

Peter calls Smiley in the car, right after seeing Connie. “You were right, George. Karla reportedly had a German mistress. Connie says the rumour was that he had her killed – apparently for not being a sufficiently devoted Communist.”

“And the child?”

“Yes, a daughter, Tatiana. He’s kept her well-hidden, but Connie has somehow come to the conclusion that the girl is mentally ill.  Possibly schizophrenia.”

Smiley considers this for a while. “Very good, Peter. We have what we need. In the meantime, I think you should go back to the safehouse and rest.”

Peter’s known Smiley long enough to tell when something’s up. “George, what aren’t you telling me?”

The older man clears his throat. “Nothing at all, Peter.  I’ll call you if I need anything.”

“Like bloody hell you will. I’m on my way. Stay put until I get there.” He hangs up before Smiley can object, before he can even think about the implications of disobeying a direct order from his superior, however gently given.

His phone rings mere seconds later and he picks up at once. “Fawn.”

She is whispering. “You stubborn man.”

“Where are you?” he demands.

“Mr. Smiley and Mr. Holmes are in danger. They’re at –“

“Yes, I know where they are. I’m heading over there now.” He turns to Pembroke, the Circus man who’s driving him, and gives him instructions. Then he returns to Fawn. “You haven’t answered my question. Where are you?”

A pause. “I’m in position.”

Something in the tone of her voice genuinely frightens Peter. “Fawn, what are you doing?” Then it comes to him. “It’s Moran. You’re there with Moran.” He can’t keep the panic out of his voice. “Fawn. Don’t do anything stupid.”

She disconnects.

 

A lighter sits atop Karla’s desk. He has been staring at it for nearly half an hour. 

It’s been in his possession for years. He kept it after it was handed to him in a dingy little interrogation room in Delhi, along with a pack of cigarettes and an offer to make a new life in the West.

He’s never used the lighter, but he cleans it often, makes certain that it works properly. It’s a reminder -- a proxy for the man to whom it once belonged. In the back of his mind, unacknowledged until this moment, Karla has always known that he would return it someday -- very likely in person.

Now that George Smiley and Sherlock Holmes have found Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova, that day could come even sooner than he had anticipated.

He would like to be able to return the lighter intact, well-preserved.

He cups it almost tenderly in his hand, running his thumb along the inscription: _To George, from Ann, with all my love._

 _George Smiley_ , he thinks to himself. _You and I, we both know the fundamental truth about this game._

_In the end, it's always the little things that defeat us._

 

Mycroft Holmes is surveying a bank of monitors hooked up to surveillance cameras all around the area. It’s easy enough to track the movements of those on the ground, but he knows only too well that the danger will come from the air. So it’s crucial that the surveillance satellite starts feeding images soon; he needs to know who and what Moriarty has set in place high up in the buildings surrounding the flat.

There is a part of him that wants to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. All this effort, this realignment of men and matériel: all because he feels this constant compulsion to protect his brother.  His wild, willful, dazzling brother, who last month began trying to solve a series of intricate criminal puzzles and found himself weeks later at the centre of a crisis in the global balance of power: an invisible crisis, destined to be wiped off all the records, never to be written in the history books.

 _I’ve just ordered the re-assignment of a surveillance satellite_.  Absurd to think it, even more absurd to say it aloud. And yet he already has, at the very moment when he gave the order.

 _Dear brother_ , he thinks to himself with a laugh more wry than bitter. _You don’t appreciate me nearly enough_.

 

Pembroke’s car comes to a halt some distance away from the building. Peter is on the line to Ricky, who has now replaced the car he drove Sherlock and Smiley in, with another bullet-proof vehicle.

“Update?”

“We had four players earlier, but they’ve gone off. I have a bad feeling about this, Mr. Guillam. Something’s definitely up.”

Peter digests this for a moment. “What did they look like?”

“Rough, sir. Independent contractors, I think.”

Peter shakes his head.   _Either they were pulled out because better ones have been sent to replace them, or there’s been a difference of opinion at the very top_.   _And if that’s the case, the question is, who’s been left behind?_

“Have you heard from Fawn?”

“No, sir. Her link is off, I can’t get her. I’ve been trying all day.”

Peter scans the building unhappily. “Damn, is that the main exit?

“Yes. As you can see, they’ve got a fair distance to cover in plain sight before they get to the van.”

He looks up at the buildings around him. “Other exits?”

“One, in the back. But the alley it leads to can only take foot traffic; it’s too narrow for a vehicle, and it winds back out onto this street anyway.”

“Roof egress?” Peter is considering the possibility of an airlift; without a doubt, Mycroft Holmes could certainly manage that.

“None.”

He takes a deep breath, trying to tamp down his frustration. “So what you’re saying is, we’re fucked.”

 

In the flat, Sherlock and Smiley have drawn all the curtains and are keeping Madame Ostrakova well away from the windows. Smiley tries to keep her calm; he makes her a cup of tea, making sure not to stand anywhere near the kitchen windows.  She gratefully accepts, and he leaves her side to join Sherlock.

“Karla has a daughter by a German mistress. Our leading Russia watcher at the Circus believes she is mentally ill.”

“Oh.” Sherlock’s eyes light up. “Oh! That makes perfect sense, then. Contact this woman, dupe her into thinking her daughter is coming to the West, then use her life story as cover. Very likely the two young women would look about the same, are the same age.  He can’t get his daughter the proper help within the Soviet system, so he needs to get her out here, where she can be treated. Oh, that is brilliant.”

If Smiley is taken aback by Sherlock’s glee, he doesn’t show it. “Madame Ostrakova is clearly a mere pawn in the game, and therefore expendable to both sides.” He fixes his eyes on the younger man. “But on principle …”

“Yes, of course. We can’t possibly leave her here.” Sherlock looks at Smiley, searching his face for any sign of surprise. “I may be an emotionally stunted bastard, Mr. Smiley, but I _can_ tell right from wrong.”

The older man reaches out to give Sherlock’s arm the briefest of touches. In a very short time, he’s grown rather fond of the detective; he’d like to ensure that he comes out of this entire mess alive. He thinks the younger man could evolve into an excellent human being someday; he certainly wants him to have a chance to do so.

“There are movements outside this building, Mr. Holmes. Our people are in position but getting her out will be risky, to say the least.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “We don’t have a choice.” His mobile phone suddenly emits a text alert. He checks it as Smiley waits.

“I am loathe to admit it, Mr. Smiley,” he says, smiling for the first time today. “But being my brother’s brother has its advantages.”

 

The satellite images begin coming in, and Mycroft looks over the heads of a team of analysts picking apart the fine details, to the row of stone-faced military types lined up against a wall, awaiting instructions. He projects his voice, calm but authoritative,  so that it carries throughout this massive room.

First he addresses the analysts. “You should be looking specifically for snipers. Three or four, all military-trained. And the best of them will be the hardest to find. If you find anything suspicious, we will send teams in.”

Then, he turns to the team commanders.  “I want them alive, if at all possible. But if it’s necessary in order to save the lives of the three people in that flat, and the Circus operatives who are trying to protect them -- do **not** hesitate to kill them. Are there any questions?”

One of the commanders raises his hand. “Mr. Holmes, sir, why don’t we simply move in to secure the flat and the people inside it?”

Mycroft musters a bland smile, tries to keep both sarcasm and withering pity out of his voice, but does not succeed completely. “Commander, I am hardly in a mood to start a war with the Soviet empire today. I have a dinner appointment that I would very much like to keep.”

There are a few chuckles from the analysts’ table.

Mycroft continues, more sober this time. “As far as Moscow knows, this is as yet a purely civilian operation, under the auspices of the Circus. Hence its counter-operations are likewise purely civilian in nature.  If Moscow Centre were to find out that our military forces had been called in, it would likely view this as an act of aggression. We cannot be seen at the flat, but we can target the attackers one by one, out of plain sight.”

“Now, if there is nothing else …”

There is silence all round, and Mycroft decides to give the final order.  It amuses him to borrow one of his brother’s favourite phrases.

“Very well, gentlemen. The game is on.”


	13. There Past All Recognition Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim Moriarty breaks away from Karla in pursuit of his obsession, but this time he bites off far more than even he can chew. And Peter Guillam learns a fresh definition of loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The chapter title borrows from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Death"

Moran has chosen his spot well.

It’s not too high a building – a mere ten floors up. He has good cover above and around him. From his position, he has an unimpeded view of the target building’s exit. Yet it’s not within that first ring of structures surrounding that building; so if anyone conducts a search of the area, he’ll have just enough time to pack up and run.

It’s exactly the spot Fawn would have chosen herself.

She had been in such a hurry to follow him from her flat that she left pretty much everything behind in her car – her gear, her rifle.

That’s all right. Moran has very kindly chosen a rooftop littered with junk: huge, empty spools for metal cable, wooden pallets, broken glass, rubber tyres.

Heavy chain.

She switches on the communications link so she can monitor what’s happening.

She won’t move until the very last possible minute.

And neither will he.

 

Smiley’s phone rings, and it’s the encrypted line to Mycroft Holmes.

“Yes, sir.  I understand.” He looks at Sherlock. “Yes, he is. “ A beat, during which Sherlock raises an eyebrow in enquiry. “I am certain he’s aware of that, sir.”

“Why is he calling you?” Sherlock demands. “What’s he saying now?”

Smiley holds up a hand. “Indeed, Mr. Holmes. But that’s all right. I’m certain we can manage on our own.” The conversation ends and he turns to Sherlock.

“Your brother says they’re conducting a search of the surrounding buildings now.”

“For Moriarty’s snipers.”

“Yes. We’re to stay here until we have the all-clear. However, he anticipates that —“

Smiley’s words are drowned out by a burst of gunfire that shatters the windows.  Sherlock moves quickly, dragging Smiley down to the floor.

“Get down!” he bellows at Madame Ostrakova, who’s paralysed with terror on the sofa. “Damn it, woman, get on the floor!”

 

The satellite is doing what it’s been instructed to do: making short work of detecting the heat signatures from three high-powered sniper rifles.

One of the analysts rushes to Mycroft with a slip of paper. He quickly hands it to his assistant, who begins typing a series of letters and numbers into her Blackberry; the information is relayed to one of the teams on the ground.  It’s the location of one of the three snipers.

Just two more.

Mycroft had anticipated that Moriarty would try to flush Sherlock, Smiley and Madame Ostrakova out of the flat with gunfire. Then another sniper – very likely his best, Sebastian Moran – would be waiting to pick them off one by one.

It will be a waiting game, then.

In the meantime, the other snipers continue to fire on the flat.

Mycroft hopes his brother can stay down and stay still long enough to make it out of there in one piece.

 

Peter is about to telephone Smiley when the first shots are fired.  His blood runs cold, and he punches out the numbers. There’s no response.

His hands are shaking. He counts to ten, forcing himself to breathe right and clear his head, then tries a second time, just as another volley of shots rings out. His knees actually buckle from the simultaneous surge of relief and panic that he feels when the older man picks up.

“George! Are you all right, George?” he yells, struggling to make himself heard over what he’s certain is the deafening noise of gunfire inside the flat.

He hears Smiley’s voice, but he can’t make out what he’s saying.

 

Fawn is watching Moran unfold the wrapper from a stick of gum. He lets the wind carry the foil away; it glints in the pale light before disappearing from view. He slips the gum into his mouth and starts to chew. He’s leaning against the parapet, casually polishing his rifle; his whole body is remarkably relaxed. He might as well be in a swimming costume, sunning himself on a beach in the Caribbean.

Fawn winds one end of a length of chain around her right hand.  She’s storing energy like a tightly coiled spring.

They wait.

 

“The second man, sir,” says an analyst as he rushes up to Mycroft with another slip of paper. Mycroft again passes it to his assistant. Another set of coordinates relayed to the field.

Mycroft glances at a huge clock on the wall.  The next ten minutes are going to be crucial.

 

Smiley and Sherlock have dragged Madame Ostrakova to the safest part of the flat. Elsewhere in the building, people are screaming, doors slamming shut, footsteps pounding down the stairs. It’s mayhem.

Sherlock looks at Smiley; he speaks in a low voice so the woman can’t hear. “I suppose it would be a tactical error to take advantage of this rush of people scrambling out, to make our escape.”

Smiley shakes his head ruefully. “It certainly does sound like a herd of elephants, doesn’t it?”

Sherlock grunts, instantly reading his meaning. “Yes, of course. Not many people in the building, at this time of day – most of the occupants are at work or at school. Wouldn’t be more than a dozen people running out. We’d be dead easy to spot.”

Before Smiley can respond, there’s another long burst of gunfire. The curtains have been torn to shreds, the windows completely shattered, the floor near them covered in shards of glass and splinters of wood.

When Sherlock looks up, there is a thin stream of blood trickling down Smiley’s right temple. “You’re hurt,” he says, immediately putting up a hand to examine the wound.

Smiley is groping in his coat pocket for a handkerchief. “Superficial,” he assures Sherlock. “Piece of glass, nothing to worry about.” He manages to fish out the handkerchief and Madame Ostrakova quickly takes it from him and holds it up to the wound.

“Press down on it hard,” Sherlock instructs her, and she does what she’s told, glad to have something to focus on other than her own terror.

It’s suddenly silent, and the detective takes a few seconds to process the events of the past few minutes.

“Mr. Smiley.  Was there significantly less firepower in that last round than there was in the first three or four?”

Smiley adjusts his spectacles on the bridge of his nose and blinks. “Yes. Yes, I do believe so.”

 

Mycroft receives word that one of the teams has found the third sniper.

None of the three are Sebastian Moran.

“Anthea,” he says to his assistant. “I don’t think our fourth man is likely to cooperate with us, do you?”

“No, sir.”

 Mycroft sighs. “Very well, then. Let’s move on to the next phase.”

And under his breath, he mutters: “And let’s hope our efforts, however hastily put together, bear fruit.”

 

Smiley’s phone rings again during a lull in the shooting. It’s Mycroft Holmes.

“Yes, sir.”

“How are all of you, George? Anyone injured?”

Smile glances up at Sherlock and then at Madame Ostrakova. “We are all quite well, all things considered.”

Sherlock scowls. “Why doesn’t he call _me_?”

Mycroft overhears his brother. “You may tell Sherlock or not, as you see fit, George; but I think he will take instructions far better from you than from me.”

Smiley ignores this; he really has no patience to spare for the brothers' sniping at this point. “What would you like us to do, Mr. Holmes?”

“Stay where you are, for now. We’ve managed to deal with three of Moriarty’s snipers. But Moran remains active, and we can’t trace him. We can’t risk any of you stepping out until we’ve found him.”

“Very well, sir.”

 

Suddenly, Moran springs into action, his whole body taut.  His rifle is at the ready, and he’s peering through the sight.

Not much time left, now.

Fawn whispers into her mouthpiece.

“Mr. Guillam.”

 

Anthea taps Mycroft on the shoulder. “Telephone call, Mr. Holmes.” She hands him his mobile phone, gives him a telling look. “I think you’ll want to take this.”

He nods, takes the phone.

“Yes?”

“You Holmes boys are simply  _incapable_ of playing fair, aren’t you?”

Mycroft sighs. “Pot calling the kettle black, Mr. Moriarty?”

“I don’t know how you’re finding my men. I have this nagging feeling that you’re using one of the Queen’s keyhole-class reconnaissance satellites. How am I doing?”

“Ah. That would be telling.”

Moriarty snickers. “Big Brother really _is_ watching, isn’t he? In every possible sense. I wonder how the public would react to finding out that their taxes are being used to protect one troublesome consulting detective.”

“Hmmm. Not to mention the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and a woman who holds the key to a secret that could alter the course of the Cold War. Yes, I think the public would be positively _outraged_ at how their taxes are being allocated in this case.”

Moriarty falls silent, but not for long. “You might be able to get your little brother out of this mess this time, Mr. Holmes. But you won’t be able to watch him forever. Sooner or later, you’ll turn your back. And when you do, I’ll be ready.”

An arctic chill seeps into Mycroft's voice. “When it comes to my brother, Mr. Moriarty, I never, ever turn my back. And now if you’ll excuse me. Your Sebastian Moran is next on my list, and I want to make an example of him. Purely for your benefit, of course.”

He disconnects, hands the phone back to Anthea.

“I appear to have made a promise to James Moriarty, Anthea. Let's make sure that I keep it.”

 

The wound in Peter’s shoulder is throbbing painfully, and he’s leaning against a wall, helpless, frustrated.  Smiley isn’t answering his calls any more; he hates to think what has happened to the three people in the flat.  

The communications link suddenly crackles to life and he quickly responds.

“Is that you, Fawn?”

 Again, that silence that passes for _yes_.

“Where are you? I’ve no time for silly little games, I want an answer.”

“Moran is ready to move,” she says, keeping her voice low so that Moran can’t hear her.

"Don't do anything stupid." When she doesn't answer, he raises his voice. "Damn it, answer me, Fawn."

"Rei," she says.

"What?"

"My name is Rei.”

Peter's heart sinks. "Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I want you to know.”

“Jesus, Fawn. Whatever you're thinking, please don't do it.” His voice cracks. “We can fix this.”

“It can’t be fixed.”

“No. I refuse to believe that. We’ll find another way to get Moran, just please --"

"He was right, your Mr. Holmes. They put me in a cage. And they came, one man after another."

"Later, Fawn.” Peter tries to be firm, fails. “Tell me the rest of the story when you get back. Please."

She keeps going. Her voice, barely above a whisper, is steady. "They got careless and I got away. But Moran kept after me until there was no place left to run. So I jumped. It was beautiful: like flying."

"Fawn, tell me when you come back," he pleads. "You can hop up on my furniture all you want."

She chuckles. “It’s been good, hasn’t it?”

 _No, no, it’s too much. It’s all just too much_. "Come home, Fawn." Peter is weeping now. "Just – come home. Please.”

“You’ll find Moran at the building directly behind the bank.”

Peter starts walking, fast; there’s nothing he can do right now for Smiley and Sherlock, but maybe he can get to Fawn in time. _Keep her on the line, keep her talking_.

“What about you? Where will _you_ be?” His breath catches on a sob. “What am I going to say to George?"

"I am grateful, Mr. Guillam."

"Peter," he whispers. "You should call me Peter."

She’s quiet for a while.

"Go and find something good, Peter."

"Rei, no. Just stay with me.”

“Something lasting. Something true.”

“Rei.”

Her frequency goes dead.

"Rei.”

 

Moran has seen the doors open; the movement is slow, careful. _Good. Come out where I can see you._

Now a van screeches into position at the curb: one of those characterless, bullet-proof vehicles the intelligence services are so enamoured of.

He’s ready; he’ll make quick work of this, and be back at Jim’s in time for a little celebratory drink.

Smiley steps out of the door first. He glances around warily at first, then turns back and helps Madame Ostrakova out, Sherlock following close behind.

Moran waits. He wants them to move away from the building and toward the van; he’ll make his move right at the midpoint of the distance between the two, when they’re completely out in the open and there’s nowhere to hide.

But something’s wrong. The two men are looking around them, but not up – up at the buildings around them, where the threat would logically be coming from.

Up at _him_.

 _Of course. You’re not looking up because you don’t want me to see_ _\--_

Then he hears the clink of metal behind him.

He turns around, but he’s not fast enough. She flicks the chain like a whip with as much force as she can muster, and it winds around his neck once in a loop. As she pulls it tight, he’s forced to release the rifle. It falls over the parapet and onto the ground, breaking into pieces.

“Well, well,” he says, mocking her with an abomination of a smile. “Little Rei Eristavi. Look how you’ve grown.” He grasps the chain and yanks hard at it, trying to pull her off balance, almost succeeding. “Do you still like it the way I did it to you? Do you still _beg for it_?”

She doesn’t answer; instead, she leaps up onto the parapet, quickly grabbing the other end of the chain.  He struggles against it, tries to pull her back onto his side of the barrier where he can control her. But she’s always been far stronger than she looks; she leans backward dangerously, pulling on the chain, and he realises in horror that gravity’s on her side. She holds on tight and before he can stop himself, he’s being dragged along.

“Fly with me,” she whispers to him. The chain is taut around his throat and he claws uselessly at it with cold fingers; she tilts her head up to the sky and leans back as far as she can go. The movement is enough to drag them both off the parapet, and he roars as he goes over after her. 

As they fall, Fawn twists her body so that Moran is below her. She looks into his eyes, hears the satisfying snap as his neck breaks, and she is glad of the thought that her face is the last thing he’ll ever see.

Then she lets go of the chain.

The wind is whistling in her ears, whipping through her hair, the pale winter sun shining softly, sweetly on her and the world passes oh so quickly and it's all so very beautiful but she's finally, finally free.

 

Mycroft Holmes is livid.

“The decoys are already out there. Where _is_ he?” he asks testily of no one in particular. “Why in heaven’s name isn’t he firing?”

One of the analysts, a short, round young man with an unfortunate mop of flame-red hair and a heavily-freckled face, calls out to him.

“Mr. Holmes, sir,” he says, pointing a trembling finger at one corner of the image on one of the screens. “I think you need to see this.”

 

Peter is the first to reach them.

He sees Moran first, quickly checks if he’s as dead as he looks. He is.

Then he stops a few feet away from Fawn.

Long minutes tick by, and all he can do is stare. He becomes dimly aware of footsteps coming up behind him. Ricki’s the first at his side, and he’s distraught, walking around in tight circles, saying things that Peter can only vaguely understand. He feels as though he's standing outside his body, watching the scene play out like one of Connie's old film reels: grainy, jerky, drained of colour. Ricki falling to his knees beside him, his head in his hands. Passersby gaping in horror at the two bodies on the pavement. More footsteps, the wail of a siren in the distance, the throbbing in his shoulder now sharper, more insistent.

Things unfold slowly in front of him, like time thawing from a frozen state.

Someone touches him, and he turns around, instinct making him put his fists up. Sherlock holds both of his hands up to mollify him. “Stop. It’s me.”

Peter’s eyes are raw from weeping. He can’t seem to comprehend what he’s just heard.

“Go on,” Sherlock says quietly. “Go and see to her.” He gives Peter a gentle push, and Peter’s body does what it’s told, even if his mind is lagging more than a few seconds behind.

“I can’t –“ he begins to say, although he’s not sure what he means or to whom he’s saying it. “I don’t understand --” and he waves a hand at her. She's broken, all jutting limbs and jagged angles, so unlike the streamlined way she was – before _this_. He tries to make sense of it but he doesn't know where to touch her, or how; she looks so fragile: cracked glass held together by thin paper.

Sherlock moves closer, sees Peter's hands hovering over her body without actually connecting.

"It won’t hurt her, Peter," he says.

"What?" Peter asks, the word tearing from his throat.

"You won’t hurt her." When Peter continues to look utterly lost, Sherlock hesitantly lays a hand on his shoulder, as though unsure of what he’s doing. "See? It doesn’t matter to her any more. She can’t feel anything."

“But what if – what if I _want_ her to feel?” He stares at Sherlock dumbly, and his tongue feels thick and useless in his mouth. “What if I want her to feel _me_?”

Not too long ago, Sherlock might have dismissed such a question as ridiculously sentimental. Now, he struggles to find the right words to say.

“Then all the more reason to see to her.”

Peter nods, turns back to the bleeding ruin of Fawn’s body. He bends, slides his arms under hers, and pulls her to him. Her neck is broken and her head lolls to one side, so he cups the back of it in one hand, and holds her to his chest. He is careful, so careful, as though she can still feel discomfort. Her body feels all wrong -- hard where it should be soft, soft where it should be hard.

But soon enough it doesn't matter to him either. So he holds her tightly, cradling her against him, rocking her gently.

He’s not sure how long he does this. When he opens his eyes, George Smiley is standing before him.

Peter holds her body out to Smiley like an offering. "George," he starts to speak, but he cannot seem to find any more words.

Smiley looks down impassively at what remains of Fawn's face. "The ambulance has arrived, Peter." He turns away and starts walking.

"George," Peter calls out to him.

When Smiley doesn't stop, he shouts. "George!"

Smiley stops for a moment but doesn't turn around. "It isn’t Fawn anymore, Peter. You can let her go."

"And then what, George?" Peter's voice breaks in anguish.

Smiley finally turns around slowly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what else will you ask me to let go of? What else will I have to tidy up?"

"Peter." Smiley says it softly, the name barely audible above the wail of the ambulance's sirens.

"Because I don't think I've got much left, George. I don't think I have anything left."

The paramedics begin unloading the gurney from the back of the ambulance, and there's a flurry of movement around them.

There's no reproach in Smiley's voice, only absolute compassion. "Whatever point you think you've arrived at, Peter, I can promise you this. I got there long before you did. And I’m still going."

The chief of the Circus turns up the collar of his coat against the cold, stuffs his hands into his coat pockets, and walks away.


	14. "Entregarme"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim Moriarty learns the consequences of his double-dealing, as the Circus mourns the loss of one of its own. Meanwhile, Sherlock reaches out to Peter, and walls are broken down.

When the landline rings, Jim fully expects it to be Moran. “Took you long enough to call back. And why are you using this line? I thought I told you to call my mobile,” he says crossly. “I was just about to leave. I hope you have something good to show me.”

Instead, the person on the other end says: “Mr. Moriarty.”

The stilted formality of the Soviet spymaster’s speech is now underscored by something cold and threatening.

“Karla, dear. What a surprise to hear from you again so soon. Are we a thing now, you and I?”

“I asked you not to continue with the operation.”

“Uh, no, sweetheart. You _told_ me. And if you haven’t realised it by now, I dislike being told what to do.”

Jim hears the click of something metallic, once, twice, three times.

“Your man is dead.”

 _No. Not Sebastian_. He’s reeling; he can feel the blood rush to his head then drain away just as quickly, and he grasps the edge of the desk with his free hand.

“You’re lying.”

“A Circus agent got him. Your people haven’t told you? Oh, wait. How foolish of me.  They _found_ your people, didn’t they?”

“Not Moran.” He reaches for his mobile phone, redials his number yet again.  “They couldn’t have.”

Karla snickers quietly. “Mr. Moriarty. We have all incurred great debts in our lifetimes: you and Mr. Moran and I. I believe today is the day those bills start coming due.”

“I’ll kill them,” Jim vows. “I’ll skin them both alive, those brothers.”

“I think you have more pressing matters to worry about, Mr. Moriarty.”

“What… could be more pressing … than destroying the Holmes brothers?” Jim screeches into the phone.

“I’m surprised by this question,” Karla says, sounding actually surprised. “Because you could neither control your impulses nor rein in your obsession with the younger Holmes, you planned badly and executed shamefully. As a result, my daughter is now in danger, and I risk being exposed to my people as a traitor – to our ideology, to our political system, to our way of life."

“You ask me what could be more pressing than destroying the Holmes brothers.  I think you already know the answer.”

“Don’t be ridiculous." There's a new note of fear in Jim's voice, so slight that only someone who's spent a lifetime observing people would notice it. "You’ll never find me. You’ll never catch me.”

Another metallic click, and Jim finally realises what that sound is: Karla is toying with a lighter.

“We won’t know that for certain, Mr. Moriarty -- until you start running.”

 

They come for her just as darkness begins to fall and the temperature plummets. He shakes his head, _no, start with that one over there_.  They shuffle off and do as they’re told, bundle Moran up and take him away. 

He doesn’t let go, doesn’t want her to feel cold.

When they come back for her, he shakes his head again. _No, not in the same ambulance as him. I won’t have it. No._

Ricki’s face is streaked with tears. “Mr. Guillam, please.” He takes Peter’s head in his hands, presses his forehead to his. “Look, there’s another one, all right? It’s right over there.” Ricki turns, glances over his shoulder to indicate the second ambulance. “You see? You’ve gotta let `em take her now. Your shoulder’s bleedin’ again. You ought to rest.”

Peter stares at Ricki, then up at the paramedics.

“It’s all right, Mr. Guillam. They’ll take care of her.” Ricki turns to one of the men. “You’ll take proper care of her, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” he answers.  Then he turns to Peter. “And we really ought to have a look at your shoulder, sir.” He holds his arms out for Fawn’s body and finally, Peter reluctantly allows them to take her from him, reaching out to cup the back of her head with one hand. They’re quick but very gentle with her, and he’s grateful. 

When they’ve put her in the ambulance, the same paramedic returns to him. “You can ride with her, if you like. We’ll check your shoulder on the way.”

Peter looks down at the injured shoulder numbly, then down at his fingers. He must have torn the wound open again while running to get to Fawn; blood has seeped through shirt and jacket and coat. He realises only now that the trickle of blood from his shoulder has mingled with Fawn’s blood. He spreads his fingers like a fan, and crimson drops fall on wet concrete.

Sherlock removes his scarf from around his neck and offers it to Peter wordlessly so he can wipe his hand on it. But he refuses it. He doesn’t want to wipe her blood off; it’s sacred somehow, he doesn’t want to be rid of it.

A sleek black Jaguar arrives, sliding into a spot behind the ambulance carrying Fawn’s body. One of its doors swings open and Mycroft Holmes emerges. He moves quickly toward his brother.

“Sherlock, come. It isn't safe yet.”

“Oh, go away, Mycroft,” he responds impatiently. “He wouldn’t try again so soon. He’s lost his best men. I’m staying.”

“Sherlock –“

“Peter.” Sherlock moves toward Peter, but Mycroft holds him firmly by the arm. He glares at his brother and tries to shrug him off.

“Go with your brother, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock turns to Peter, who’s staring blankly at the back of the open ambulance; he reaches out a hand to him. “But Peter –“

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Peter suddenly snaps at the detective. “Would it kill you to do as you’re told for once?”

Sherlock flinches, as though he’s been slapped hard on the face.  Then the look is gone, replaced by the cold, hard mask he usually wears. He yanks his arm from Mycroft’s grasp, then turns around and heads straight for the Jaguar.

Peter shakes his head, sighs. He can’t do anything right today. “I’m sorry – wait …” But Sherlock has disappeared into the car.

Mycroft looks at him, not unkindly. “Mr. Guillam, you’ve been under a great deal of strain,” he says quietly. “As we all have. I can assure you that my brother will understand, once he himself has calmed down.”

Peter hears the words but his head feels like it’s wrapped in wool; he’s shivering from the cold and from blood loss, and his legs feel like they’re made of jelly. Ricki steps up behind him, props him up.

“I think we’d better get `im to hospital, Mr. Holmes.”

“Indeed, Mr. Tarr.”

Peter allows himself to be guided slowly to the ambulance.

They’ve covered her face with a sheet.

Ricki waves sadly at him before they close the ambulance doors. Someone removes his coat and jacket and unbuttons his shirt to examine the wound on his shoulder.  Outside the windows, the world goes by in a haze, alternating shadow with the glow of street lights. Nothing has changed; or else everything has changed, it’s just that nobody out there knows it.

He doesn’t even grit his teeth when they sew him back up again. Nothing feels real, not even the pain. When the paramedics aren’t looking, he gropes like a child for her hand under the sheet. It’s cold, now, but he hangs on to it until they get to hospital.

Until they pry it loose from his fingers.

 

“Do stop sulking, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, flicking off a speck of lint that has somehow attached itself to his jacket. “It’s fouling up the air in this confined space.”

“ _You’re_ fouling up the air in this confined space, Mycroft.” Sherlock shifts so violently in the seat that he accidentally kicks the front seat, momentarily startling the driver.

“I’ll thank you not to kick my staff, Sherlock. I should not have to explain that I cannot risk any further harm coming to you.”

“Why don’t you come out and tell me why you really wanted me to come away with you?” There’s a fierce challenge in Sherlock’s eyes, but Mycroft meets it dispassionately with his own.

“Why don’t you come out and tell me why you really wanted to stay?”

“There is a special circle of hell reserved for people like you. And since there are no other people like you, you shall have it all to yourself.”

Mycroft is suddenly tired of it all: tired of this game with Moriarty, tired of walking this treacherous tightrope between official duty and personal responsibility, tired of his brother’s mocking sullenness.  

Still he digs deep, finds the last few shreds of patience somewhere at the bottom.

“Think what you would do if you had lost John at the pool, Sherlock. Then think about what Peter Guillam has just lost.” He turns away from Sherlock, casting his glance at the darkness outside the window. “Grief deserves respect, brother dear. Even if that respect requires that you keep your distance.”

Slowly, Sherlock turns to his brother. It’s a pity he isn’t looking back; if he were, he would see Sherlock looking at him as though he were someone else, someone new – or perhaps someone old, loved, but long ago lost.

“Mycroft.” He says it softly, in a tone the older man has not heard in many, many years. It makes him finally tear his gaze away from the window.

“Sherlock.”

The brothers eye each other quietly for a long moment, recognising something in the other that they had all along assumed was no longer there.

It’s Sherlock who breaks the silence.

“A satellite.” He smirks. “I can't believe you pulled a satellite. For _me_.”

Mycroft takes a deep breath. “If it's any consolation, dear brother, neither can I.”

A snort turns into a giggle, a giggle turns into raucous laughter, laughter turns into helpless wheezing. They haven’t laughed like this since they were children.

When they’ve both caught their breath, Sherlock says solemnly: “I haven't got any satellites up my sleeve, Mycroft.”

His older brother sees this for what it is: Sherlock’s version of _thanks_ and _sorry_.

“Then I shall have to content myself with dinner.” _You’re welcome. It’s all right_.

“I thought you were watching your weight.”

Mycroft sighs. “Very well. Dinner _and_ a moratorium on remarks upon my weight.”

Sherlock smiles in that lopsided way of his. “I think I can manage that at least.”

“I shan’t get my hopes up.” Mycroft relaxes into the seat. “In all this … excitement, you seem to have forgotten to ask me where we’re going.”

The younger man’s head whips around to look out the window, quickly noting buildings and other landmarks.

“Of course. Brixton.” The smile he gives his brother practically lights up the interior of the car. “You’re taking me to see John.”

 

When George Smiley arrives at the Circus, he heads straight to his office. He knows by the deathly quiet among the staff that they’ve heard news of Fawn. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after that, someone will have to debrief him. Ricki will have to be next, but God knows when Peter will be ready for debriefing.

He closes the door to his office. The hinges still squeak even after they’ve been oiled.

_If I had known that was the last time you’d ever open this door, I would have asked you how you do it._

He crosses the room and sinks into his chair. Except for brief catnaps here and there, he’s been awake for more than 48 hours. He removes his spectacles, squeezes his eyelids shut, then leans back and tries to let the tension drain away.

It doesn’t work.

There’s a knock on the door, and Smiley wishes he could hurl something heavy at it to drive whoever it is away. Instead, he calls out: “Come in.”

When the door is opened slowly, it sings like an untrained soprano being murdered.

“George.” It’s Connie. Her eyes are rimmed with red, and she’s come bearing a half-full bottle of scotch.

He sighs; he just doesn’t have the strength for Connie right now.

She rolls into the room, quick on her feet despite her size.  As though she knows what he's thinking, she says: “I won’t stay. I just thought you might need some of this.” She sets the bottle down on his desk.

He squints to read the label, too tired to move from his current position. “That’s the good kind, Connie.”

“Nothing but the best for my dear George,” she says, falsely cheerful. Seconds later the façade cracks and she’s in tears. “Oh, George. Poor, poor Fawn. “

He doesn’t want to be unkind, so he waits without speaking until the worst of it is over.  When she begins to collect herself, he says, “Connie, I need you to do something for me.”

She blows her nose loudly into a handkerchief, then tucks it away in the pocket of her skirt.  She straightens her back, squares her shoulders. “Yes, George.”

“I need a list of all the possible places where a young woman could receive private, highly personalised treatment for mental illness.” He pauses. “Someplace with a reputation for the utmost secrecy.”

Connie nods. “Not many of those. I’ll have it ready for you by morning.” She starts to go.

“One more thing, Connie.”

“Yes, George?”

“Do you remember Control’s little dossier on Fawn?”

She sniffs, then smiles weakly. “Oh, you know very well it wasn’t a dossier, George dear. Just a single film reel in a box.”

Smiley nods. “That’s the one. Do you think you could get it for me?”

 

Peter doesn’t go to the memorial service. He spends the day in a kind of sepia fog resulting from a potent mix of copious amounts of alcohol and painkillers and the absence of food. He's been wearing the same pajama bottoms that he wore when he got home on the night she died. The television has been on continuously for five days, tuned to a documentary channel: lions and gazelles on arid plains, whale sharks in the open sea, tree frogs in rain forests. He sits in front of it, staring at the images, taking nothing in. He vaguely remembers calling Richard at one point, and that he kept apologising for something, and that Richard had hung up on him.

Connie rings him after the service, telling him it was just Smiley and Ricki and her. He listens and makes the appropriate noises at all the right times, until she mentions a pretty urn, and then he doesn’t want to listen any more, and he tells her so and hangs up on her.

The thought of Fawn in an urn, however pretty, makes him retch. When he’s emptied his insides into the toilet bowl, he howls in the bathroom like a wounded animal. A neighbor pounds on his door until he stops.

The day slides into night and he takes more of the painkillers than the prescribed dosage and he sleeps a restless sleep. He wakes up tired and angry, and he drinks, and he sleeps again and he dreams that he wakes up and Fawn is there, crouching on top of his chest of drawers, alive and unbroken. He tells her _I’m sorry_ , and she tilts her head, puzzled, _what for?_ and he says, _everything_.

She hops off the chest to sit at the edge of his bed _. You keep apologising, Peter. I’m not sure I understand why._

_Because I couldn’t fix it._

_Who said you had to?_

_I wanted to._

She shakes her head. _It was not your burden to bear._

_And how many of my burdens have you borne?_

_I wasn’t aware it was a contest._

He lies back and watches her, but he can’t see her face, just the clean, sleek shape of her in the half-light _. You talk a lot more easily now that you’re dead._

Something that passes for a laugh, and then she says in a suddenly stern voice _, Peter Guillam, you’re filthy_. _You haven’t bathed in four or five days. You smell like liquor and sweat and piss and vomit. You haven’t bothered to change the dressing on that wound and thank God that the paramedic who stitched you up knew what he was doing or else that would be festering by now._

 _Fawn_ , he says.

_You need a bath. Right now. If you won’t do it, I’ll drag you in there myself. Shall I give you a countdown? Very well. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven._

_Fawn?_ He sits up groggily, tries to focus.

“She’s dead, in case you needed reminding.” Sherlock is standing at the foot of the bed, hands in his trouser pockets. He’s removed his coat and his jacket, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “ _Six_.”

“How did you get in here?”

“Same way that I got in the last time. _Five_.”

“What are you – why are you counting?”

“Because you smell rank, and I won’t come near you to change that dressing until you’ve bathed.”

Peter struggles mightily to focus. “I don’t want your help.”

“That may be the case, but you certainly need it. _Four_.”

“Get out of here.” Peter tries to rise from the bed, finds his legs hopelessly entangled in the blanket.

Sherlock reaches down with both hands and deftly rips it off him, only to realise that he’s naked underneath. He maintains his composure.

“ _Three_. I should remind you that when we get to _One_ , I shall be dragging you bodily into the shower and hosing you down. Given your current condition, I doubt that you’d be able to put up a great deal of resistance.”

“What do you want from me?” Peter groans, his head throbbing. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Sherlock walks over to the bathroom, pushes the door open. “Fawn would not approve. _Two_. Will you come in here of your own accord, or will I have to –

“Wait,” Peter says through gritted teeth. “Just _fucking_ wait, would you?”

He sits and waits until his legs feel steady enough to carry him. Then he stands, wobbles slowly toward the bathroom. Sherlock stands aside to let him pass, and has the decency not to make a face when he comes within sniffing distance. He inches his way toward the shower, fighting to keep the spinning of his head under control.

He turns the shower on and gasps when the ice-cold water hits his body.

“Might want to turn the heater on,” Sherlock suggests helpfully.

“Might want to give me some fucking privacy,” he retorts.

 

Twenty minutes later, Sherlock is cleaning and re-dressing the wound on his shoulder with a competence to rival that of a medical professional.  

“You weren’t at the service,” he tells Peter, who is seated on the sink counter, a towel wrapped around his waist, blonde hair darkened from being wet.

“Neither were you.”

“I was.”

Peter looks up at him. “Connie didn’t tell me.”

“The middle-aged woman with the drinking problem?” Sherlock snips off a length of micropore tape with a pair of scissors. “She didn’t see me. I spoke with Mr. Smiley afterwards though. He said you’d filed for a leave of absence. And that you’ve refused to take his calls.” He presses the tape down to hold a wad of gauze in place. “You realise that what happened wasn’t his fault, hmmm?”

Peter turns away. “I really don’t want to get into this with you right now.”

The other man’s eyes narrow. “Avoidance. Interesting.”

“Fuck you.”

Sherlock lays the scissors down in the first-aid kit and snaps the lid shut. “That seems to be your preferred mode of dealing with emotional distress. You take a leave of absence. You close yourself off. You drink yourself into a stupor. You sleep for days.”

Peter rises, pushes past the detective. “Go to hell.”

“That’s the difference between you and Fawn, isn’t it? Fawn never ran away from anything. She never backed down, and she never –“

Suddenly Peter is pushing him, pinning him to a wall. “Shut up. You don’t know Fawn. You don’t know what she was like. “

“I know that if she had been where you are now, she wouldn’t be hung over.”

“You know _nothing_ about her,” Peter snarls, wrapping his fingers around Sherlock’s pale throat.

“Tell me I’m wrong, then,” Sherlock says, half-choking on his words. “Tell me she would have spent five days half-drugged and wholly drunk and unwashed. Tell me she would have stayed away from _your_ funeral. _Tell me_.”

“Fuck you,” Peter says, tightening his grip until the detective is clawing at his hand, pushing back, fighting.

“Peter,” he says. “Peter, it’s all right."

“No, it isn’t. You don’t understand.” Peter shakes his head vigorously. He’s loosened his fingers and Sherlock can breathe properly again. “I didn’t get to her in time, I couldn’t stop her. Can’t you see how _not_ all right it is?”

Sherlock clears his throat a moment. Then he reaches up and gently takes Peter's anguished face in both his hands. “I don’t think anyone could have stopped her, do you?”

“I should have. She was my friend."

“Peter.” Sherlock draws him closer, unsure of what he’s doing yet determined to do it, and to do it right. He finds himself thinking of John, wondering what he would do in his place. He holds Peter, strokes his hair, goes through the motions that normal people perform, each action no less sincere for being unfamiliar and unpractised. He can feel Peter’s tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt, his quiet sobbing against his neck.

And then it all turns in a breath, in heartbeat, Peter moving against him, a kiss, a sigh, the deliberate glide of hands over bodies, and Sherlock thinks, _I can’t do this, you’re not thinking straight, I mustn’t_.

“Please,” Peter whispers as though he’s read his mind. A plea, another kiss, a towel fallen to the bathroom floor, and Sherlock’s hands stroke and slide, and their lips are hunger on hunger, their bodies heat on heat.

They make it back to the bed somehow and Peter unbuttons and unbuckles and unzips until Sherlock is as naked as he is, unfurled and insolent on the bed. He pulls Peter on top of him, and the older man caresses the silk of his skin carefully, reverently, slow kisses deepening into moist aching warmth. Sherlock curls long fingers around Peter’s hard cock, savours the low moan that escapes from his lips.

_how do you want this_

_fast/hard/rough_

_am I doing this right_

_oh yes/so good_

_i want to taste you/come here_

_oh christ/yes, like that/fuck/please_

Peter’s hips move as though they have a mind of their own, the muscles of his buttocks rippling with every thrust, Sherlock’s mouth hot and wet around his sex. It’s been so long since he felt anything good, certainly not anything _this_ good. His fingers weave into Sherlock’s curls and his push and pull is savage, and then he forces himself to stop because he needs more, needs everything. When he pulls away all of a sudden, those liquid-crystal eyes look up at him, questioning and a little worried.

_why did you stop/did it feel wrong_

_no, it was wonderful/but it’s not enough_

_what would be enough/what do you want me to do_

_i need you/all of you/to be inside you/slowly/wait, i need to/i’ll stop if you tell me to_

_no, don’t/show me what you need_

_i have to do this first/get you ready/like this/is this all right/does it feel_

_peter oh i_

_am i hurting you_

_no, don’t stop/oh please/oh what is/why does it feel like that/oh god_

_does it hurt/i don’t want to hurt you/never want to hurt you_

_no it/peter/oh what am i/why does it feel/oh god/ it feels so/oh yes/ christ yes_

_sherlock, do you/should i stop_

_please don’t/oh don’t stop please_

Peter watches Sherlock in the semi-darkness of the room, the almost unbearable beauty of his body awakened, the flush on his pale skin. He buries himself deep, one hand wrapped around the younger man's cock, grasping and teasing and tugging as he squirms and bucks beneath him. He breathes in the clean scent of those dark, damp curls, warm scalp, soap and sweat, the unmistakable smell of their mingled lust. Sherlock reaches up with one hand to grasp one of the rails on Peter’s headboard, and Peter covers the hand with his own. He can’t stop now, they’re both so close, rocking together blind and reckless and animal, his mouth pressed against the long, soft, silken curve between Sherlock’s neck and shoulder, licking it with his tongue, salty the skin there, the muscles straining.

_peter i/oh god/something/something’s happening i/please/please help me/i can’t_

_it’s all right/just let go/i’m right here/i’m right here with you_

_please i’m/oh god i/peter_

Sherlock cries out his name as he comes, his cock pulsing wetly in Peter’s hand. The look on his face, the way his body twists as he climaxes, awe and humble Peter, and at the same time push him over the edge. A few more thrusts and he all but roars his release and he collapses on top of Sherlock, drenched in sweat, fingers still entwined with the other man’s on the rail.

And then he breathes out and he’s weeping again, softly because he’s ashamed: spilling out in tears every hidden thing that can no longer be dammed up. Richard, Fawn, every lie and secret of the last fifteen years, everyone he’s lost and everyone he’s had to betray and everything good and lasting and true that he’s had to give up because of the life he’s chosen, the life that’s chosen him.

Sherlock twists out from under him. He lies on his back and pulls Peter close, makes him rest his head on his chest. He's shaken to his very core, but he doesn’t say a word, this isn't the time for it.

_Grief deserves respect._

 

Mycroft is reading in his favourite nook at the Diogenes when his mobile phone vibrates in his pocket. Quickly he rises from his seat, strides out of the room and down the hall to the only place in the club where talking is allowed.  He closes the door behind him and answers the phone.

“Yes, George?”

“You asked me to call you if there was even the slightest change in Dr. Watson’s condition.”

“Yes, of course. How is he?”

Smiley pauses.

“I think you ought to inform your brother, Mr. Holmes. Dr. Watson is awake at last.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the terminology of the Argentinian tango, "entregarme" means "surrender" -- to give oneself up to the partner's lead.


	15. Vén y Va

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter Guillam doesn't dare to imagine the possibility of a future with Sherlock Holmes; and yet when circumstances force them apart once again, he can't help the bitterness that he feels. Meanwhile, Jim Moriarty spirals ever deeper into hate and obsession -- and finds a new target.

“You’re about to apologise.  I implore you, don’t.”

They are lying in bed, after, Sherlock’s head on Peter’s good shoulder, their bare legs tangled together underneath the covers.

Peter chuckles. “What on earth are you on about now?”

“You were thinking of apologising. It’s your nature, you can’t help it. Don’t deny it, it would be insulting,” Sherlock says, rapid-fire. “Let me hazard a guess. You think you’ve somehow stolen my innocence. You feel guilty. Screaming headlines inside that insufferable head of yours. _Big, bad spy corrupts sexually inexperienced genius_.”

Peter threads two, three fingers through individual curls on Sherlock’s head, fascinated by their silken gloss. “Well, you did seem to be … I mean, be honest with me. Was that your first time?”

“The first like that, yes.”

“Christ.” Peter shakes his head. “Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, stop it, Peter,” he says dismissively, with a sharp exhalation of breath. “I’m not some fragile flower. I’m a grown man, and I’m not sentimental about these things. It was a biological drive, and I obeyed. We obeyed.”

 “So that’s all it was for you, then? Just another ordinary bodily function?” Peter teases him mercilessly. “Like your first shit? Your first wank?”

Sherlock glares up at him. The detective is so refreshingly old-fashioned -- so scrupulously polite and courtly and punctilious, even when he’s viciously skewering someone’s self-esteem -- that Peter gets a genuine _frisson_ out of trying to shock him. He can’t suppress a loud laugh at seeing the dismay on his face: it’s his first real, heartfelt laugh since finding the wreckage of Fawn on the pavement.

“There’s no need to be crass, Peter Guillam. It wasn’t anything like those things, and you know it; you felt my response, you know I was … You know it felt --” and suddenly the words won’t come, and he’s reduced to gesturing with those long, delicate fingers as though he can pluck those elusive words out of thin air.

Peter, often playful after lovemaking, finds that he enjoys winding up the detective. He’s oddly pleased to see a side of him that’s vulnerable and uncertain and delightfully human, despite his attempts at maintaining the mask of cold rationality.

“I certainly hope the word you’re grasping for is _good_.”

“It was better than good. And you _must_ recognise that it meant something to me. Certainly far more than a mere – _wank_.” He says the word with the same distaste one would display while holding a dead rat away from one’s person. “But there’s no point romanticising it. It’s done and we need to move on.” He’s prickly even as he tries to express affection, and Peter is captivated by it. “Look, if I didn’t want it, Peter, I would have told you to stop. If it had hurt badly enough, I would have been more than capable of stopping you myself, and in ways that you would have found exceedingly unpleasant. You Circus agents don’t have a monopoly on self-defence techniques.”

Peter lightly strokes Sherlock’s bare back with his thumb: starting from the curve of a shoulder blade and drifting down to one of the two dimples just above his buttocks. He feels giddy with both awe and pride at having been able to get this close. There is a slow, lazy, dreamlike quality to this moment, having Sherlock in his bed, his warm, naked body almost grafted to his own.

“So,” he says, thoughtfully. “Not with John Watson, then.”

When Sherlock speaks again, his tone is much less harsh. “I’ve already told you that, but you seem determined to disbelieve me. John and I are not … together. In that way.”

Peter presses his nose and mouth into the detective’s deliciously wild hair, inhales deeply of its scent.  “But that could change,” he whispers.  “Couldn’t it?”

Sherlock makes a rude noise in response, but he doesn’t go further than that.

Peter reaches for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the bedside table, lights up, blows smoke rings into the air.

“Smoking’s bad for you,” Sherlock says.

“Is it?” the other man asks idly.

“Fawn said so.”

Peter chuckles. “She should talk. She’s the one who taught me how to blow smoke rings.”

Sherlock notices that he’s still talking about her in the present tense, but he doesn’t say anything to correct this. Instead, he reaches out for the cigarette; but Peter mischievously lifts it high above his reach.

“Hang on. I thought you said smoking’s bad for you.”

Sherlock huffs in exasperation, then rests his cheek against Peter’s shoulder again.  With a forefinger, he traces slow, lazy circles through the fine, sparse blonde hair on the other man’s chest.

“Why did you send me away that day?”

“Christ, you’re not still pissed off with me about that, are you?”

“I want to understand.”

Peter thinks on it a while. “Because it was our time. Hers and mine. Because I wanted – needed -- to be alone with her. She deserved as much.”

The detective draws a deep breath. “That’s what Mycroft said.”

Peter grins at him, even though he can’t see. “You should listen to your brother more often.”

“He’s meddlesome and annoying.”

“And if he weren’t, what are the odds that you and I would ever have met?”

“That sort of idle speculation is a futile exercise.”

Peter laughs, kisses his forehead near the hairline. “You are something else, do you know that? No, forget that; of course you know.”

Sherlock tilts his head up to receive the kiss, but it doesn’t erase the frown on his face; he’s thinking hard. “The last time you spoke with her.” He senses Peter’s discomfort almost immediately, but he’s not one to hold back. “Was it before you were shot?”

Peter leans further back into the pile of pillows, almost as though he’s squirming to get away from the question. “No, I … we spoke just before she …”

“And?”

He doesn’t answer at once. “She told me to find something good. Something lasting. Something true.”

Sherlock ponders this in silence. Then he asks: “What was she to you?”

It’s a question that Peter finds he’s never even truly thought about before. What _had_ Fawn been to him?

Rather like air, come to think of it. Always present, and so easy to take for granted.

 

Peter has returned from a mission in Istanbul – one of his first for the Circus -- and he’s been summoned to Control’s office after debriefing. While he waits, he is steeling himself for a thorough chewing out, preparing to defend his actions and tell the old man to go fuck himself.

Then this odd little creature emerges from a side door, bearing a tray with a small teapot, a cup and a saucer.  He’s heard all about her – the strange, perpetually silent young girl they’ve started to call Control’s butler, and in some less-than-sympathetic quarters in the organisation, Control’s _Lolita_.

She can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen, dressed in black, wearing black running shoes, black hair tightly combed back and tied into a low pony tail. She sets the tray down carefully on the small table in front of him, watching him warily out of the corner of her eye.  

“Thanks,” he says, and reaches out for the cup. But he moves too quickly, and she recoils. In the process, he somehow manages to upend the teapot, spilling boiling tea on her right hand.

“Christ, I’m sorry,” Peter says as she falls back onto the floor, scrambling away from him in a backwards half-crawl. He whips a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and holds it out to her, but she flinches. He’s never seen anyone so quietly terrified before; he doesn’t understand why, or know what else to do except continue to wave the handkerchief at her like a flag of surrender. _Look,_ _I’m harmless, I won’t hurt you_.

“Guillam!” Control bellows at him from his now-open office door. “You oaf! Leave the child alone!”

“I wasn’t doing _anything_ to her,” he protests.

“You don’t _bloody well_ have to do anything,” the old man says, small eyes blazing in that pallid, wrinkled face, and Peter quickly realises that the fury isn’t even directed at him. “Someone’s already done everything possible to her, and _that_ , right there, is the end result.”

“Now get in here and tell me about Istanbul.”

 

“I asked you a question.” Sherlock’s voice calls him back from the memory.

“Hmm, yes. What was Fawn to me.” He pauses. “Friend. Subordinate. Comrade in arms.”  

He is not surprised that none of these words seem adequate, so he tries again. “Compass. Conscience.”

Closer, yes, but not quite. “Hard to define,” he finally says. “She was like hydrochloric acid. She burned right through all my crap, and somehow still liked me. God knows why -- I was horrible to her.”

“Because she loved you,” Sherlock says, matter-of-fact. When Peter doesn’t answer, he looks up at him again, those wide, curious eyes prompting him for a response.

“That was a long time ago. She was so young.”

“No.”  Sherlock reaches for the cigarette again, and this time Peter lets him have it. He takes a drag, turns his head slightly and blows the smoke away from Peter. “Not a long time ago. Right up until the end.” He returns the cigarette, which Peter crushes into the ashtray on the bedside table. “Did you love her back?”

“Not the way she deserved.” Peter examines the twisted stub closely, as though it holds some secret. “Not the way she was prepared to love me.”

Sherlock shifts position, resting his chin lower on Peter’s chest so he can look directly into the other man’s face. “And what way was that?”

Peter tosses the stub into the ashtray. He doesn’t look at Sherlock; he seems far away at this moment, and the younger man finds it fascinating. “She wrote me once. Not a real letter -- something she’d read somewhere. She was still learning English. It was the only time she ever told me, although I suppose I already knew.”

“What did she say? Do you remember?”

Peter nods.

_“I promise to make you more alive than you’ve ever been…  
For the first time, you’ll note gravity’s prick   
like a thorn in your heel,   
and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings”_

Sherlock waits as he pauses to collect himself.

 _“…_ _and your memories will seem to begin  
with the creation of the world”_

With his forefinger, Sherlock brushes away a solitary teardrop that has slid down Peter’s cheek, then looks at his fingertip in amazement, as though he’s never seen a tear before. “Is that kind of love even possible? Isn’t love just chemistry?”

Peter smiles at him sadly, brushes a stray lock of hair off his forehead. He suspects that he could spend a dozen lifetimes with this man and yet never fully understand him. There would always be something mysterious about him, something hidden, something just maddeningly beyond his reach or comprehension.

“You have so much yet to learn.” He looks away again. “I wanted to be loved that way. By someone. But not by her, although it would have been so much simpler if she could have done for me. I told her _no_ , and she never brought it up again. I thought she’d got over it.”

“She never did,” Sherlock whispers. He shifts again, resting his head once more on Peter's shoulder, one arm thrown over his stomach. He reaches for Peter’s hand and laces his fingers through his, a gesture both incredibly intimate and exceedingly rare for him. "Did the school teacher love you that way?”

"God, you ask too many questions."

"Wrong. I ask a few questions, but I admit they're difficult ones."

“ _You’re_ a difficult one.”

Sherlock smiles up at him, then: a sweet, slow burn of a smile that Peter can feel in his bones, in his battered heart, in the pit of his stomach where all his want dwells. “You like me difficult.” He tilts his head back, so that Peter can reclaim his lips.

Peter’s touch is like the ancient script of a dead language, tracing pleasure on Sherlock’s skin, cryptic and arcane and primordial. He moans as the spy flips him on his back, pinning his arms above his head, and his back arches nearly clean off the mattress, seeking the heat and the dizzying glide of Peter’s body against his.

They begin again.

 

Molly Hooper adds another teaspoonful of sugar to her coffee. She’ll probably be ricocheting off the walls when she gets home, but she thinks she deserves the extra sweetness: small consolation for working late at the morgue yet again. When she hears the steel doors creak open and bang shut, she frowns; it’s too early for the cleaning crew and too late for anybody else.  She sets down her coffee mug and wanders cautiously into the outer room. “Who’s there?”

He comes up behind her so fast that she barely has time to react. She feels something cold against her throat and she gasps.

“Where is he?” he asks, his stubble rough against her cheek, his smell horrifyingly familiar. Jim. _James Moriarty_.

“Where is who?” she asks shakily.

“Moran. Sebastian. I know he’s still in here somewhere. The investigation is ongoing.”

She forces herself to think, to focus, even though her knees are shaking and she’s seized by a terrible chill that seems to have lodged itself in the very core of her spine. “M- _Moran_.” She says it slowly, and her tongue feels as swollen and sluggish as her brain.

He yanks her violently by her ponytail and snarls at her, his breath hot on the soft pink shell of her ear. “Show me where he is, or I’ll cut you.”

“All right. All right!” She points toward the inner door. “That way. He’s in there.”

They shuffle toward the large inner room and she says, “You have to let me check the records first. Okay? Just to refresh my memory.”

He reluctantly releases her, but follows close behind. Her skin crawls at his nearness, the brush of his body against her clothes and hair. Her hands tremble as she checks the papers, and she can sense his impatience.

“All right. This way.” She leads him down a row of morgue drawers until she finds the one she’s looking for, then opens it and draws the shelf out. She steps back and gives him room.

He shoots her a warning look with those hard, glittering, empty black eyes and then draws closer to the body on the shelf. He lifts the sheet covering the face, then gasps, a tormented sound that’s more animal than human.

“Who did this?” he asks her. When she doesn’t answer, he screams at her. “I said, who did this to him?”

Molly wishes desperately that she could stop shaking, because she can barely think. “She … she’s dead. She fell off the roof with him.”

“ _She_.” He continues to stare at her. “Molly, darling, don’t hold out on me. You know I don't like it. Who was she?”

“I – I don’t know. I think she was … some kind of agent.”

_The Circus. The fucking Circus._

He fixes her with that dead stare again. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.” Then he smiles, that sweet, shy little Jim-from-IT smile that melted her heart once and now makes her want to vomit. “Still might.”

And then he turns back to Moran’s corpse, Molly seemingly forgotten. He touches its neck, traces with his fingers the marks there. “A chain,” he whispers, not to Molly, not to himself, but to the body. “They marked you with a fucking chain.”

Molly feels simultaneously horrified and fascinated as she watches him –- there’s really no other word for it – _caress_ the corpse: its cold lips, its crushed jaw, its chest, its shoulders. He continues to whisper to it. Molly doesn’t catch all the words, but the ones she does catch – _a mistake, took you away, should have known_ – spark an awful sort of pity for him within her. She despises herself for it: her capacity for compassion even when it’s directed at this – _monster_. He’s obviously lost something here, something he didn’t even realise how much he valued until now.  

She edges slowly, quietly away until she hears less and less of what he’s saying.

The last words she does hear – _make them all pay_ – send a chill through her body. And suddenly, any compassion she felt just seconds ago evaporates, and all that’s left in its wake is the feeling of utter loathing.

When he hears her running for the exit, he doesn’t bother to chase after her.  He’ll be long gone before the help she’s certain to summon arrives.

“Seb,” he says brokenly, and a single tear anoints Moran’s shattered face.

 

Mycroft rings his brother’s mobile phone; it goes to voice mail three times before Sherlock finally deigns to pick up.

“I’m busy,” he says, even though Mycroft has yet to say anything. He is standing naked in Peter’s bedroom, his hair and skin damp from the shower he’s just shared with the other man.

“I am coming round to collect you.”

“You don’t even know where I am.”

“Peter Guillam’s flat, of course. You’ve been there since half past nine. I could give you a reasonable estimate of the number of times you and he could have achieved sexual congress since then, based on several factors including your ages and the likely amount of time that has elapsed since the last time either of you engaged in sexual activity. But I suspect you would balk at that, so I shall refrain from doing so.”

“How could you _possibly_ have become even more appallingly pedestrian in the span of a mere five days?”

Mycroft ignores the jibe. “Will you need a change of clothing? I could stop by Baker Street and pick something up for you.”

Peter steps out of the bathroom, a towel tied around his waist. He comes up behind Sherlock, presses his body against the younger man’s back, gently nuzzles his nape.

“My clothing is just fine, thank you. Particularly since I have no intention of accompanying you anywhere at this hour."

“Not even to Brixton, where John has regained consciousness?”

Peter can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but he notices at once the wave of tension that undulates through Sherlock’s body, leaving it stiff and taut.

“How? When?” the detective says, slipping quickly out of Peter’s arms and moving away from him.

“Yesterday afternoon.”

Sherlock fights hard to suppress his steadily rising annoyance. “Why wasn’t I told at once?”

“The doctors needed to ensure he was stable, and to perform certain tests.”

Peter comes closer, but Sherlock spins away from him again, turning his face away so that Peter can’t see it; if he can’t see it, he won’t be able to read it. “How soon can you be here?”

“It shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes.”

“I’ll meet you downstairs.” Sherlock ends the call.

He takes a moment to collect his thoughts before finally facing Peter.

"John is awake."

Peter feels a twinge of pain, bitterness. Something jagged where his heart should be: a sinking sense of something being wrenched away from him even before it can become his own.

But he doesn’t show it with anything more than a blink of the eyes, although he knows that Sherlock would have registered even that minute detail. "I gathered as much." He turns his back resolutely on the detective and starts making the bed.

Sherlock gathers up his clothes, begins to dress. “I’ll call you when I’ve got news.”

Peter notes with no small measure of resentment that the younger man has not bothered to extend an invitation to him, to join him for the journey to the Circus facility in Brixton. _Very well, then. That’s how you want to play this_. He beats a pillow with needless savagery, redistributing the stuffing inside. Another pillow suffers the same sorry fate, and sheets and blankets are ripped from the mattress.

Sherlock puts his socks on, watching Peter warily the entire time. “Is all that fuss you’re making absolutely _necessary_ , Peter?”

“I dislike a messy bed.”

“I wouldn’t have realised that when I found you in one earlier.”

“Thank you for focusing your usual incisive commentary on my housekeeping skills," he practically spits out. "But at this moment, it’s quite unwelcome.”

When he’s slipped on his shoes, Sherlock continues to stand around, looking utterly confused. Peter pauses in his labours to look at him.

"Well, what are you waiting for?” he says, so roughly that Sherlock flinches. “Go."

"Peter.” The detective’s voice is surprisingly gentle. “I _need_ to see him."

"I'm not stopping you."

"You don't understand. Or you refuse to understand."

Peter holds up a hand to stop him. "Look, I can't deal with this right now. All right? Just go."

“You’re being irrational, Peter.” Sherlock crosses the room in three long strides; he tries to touch Peter but he shies away.

"Just go. Please."

When he sees that Sherlock is rooted to his spot, Peter pushes him away, once, twice, repeatedly until he’s managed to push him completely out of the room.

“Peter, stop it,” he protests. “Stop. I don’t want to end tonight like this.”

Peter laughs -- a short, sharp, sour little laugh. “You, my friend, haven’t a single goddamned clue what you want.”

The younger man swallows hard, fights to keep his voice steady. “This -- is most unfair.”

"Get out, Sherlock.” Peter gives him one last, rough shove. “Just fucking **_go_**."

Sherlock stands motionless for a moment. Then he picks up his coat from the couch and leaves the flat without another word.

 

He slides silently into the back seat next to his brother, who finishes sending off a text message and then pockets his mobile phone.

“I hope that leave-taking wasn’t too unpleasant,” Mycroft says evenly.

“Unless you have something important to tell me about John, Mycroft, I suggest that you not speak to me until we get to Brixton.”

“Very well, Sherlock. George Smiley tells me that the good doctor is responding well to vocal and other stimuli. He lapses back into unconsciousness, but that’s normal; you can’t expect an instant recovery.” Mycroft notices that Sherlock’s hands are balled into fists, his knuckles sharp and white against his coat in the dark interior of the car. “There is some mild dysarthria, and that, too, is quite common. The initial assessment is that there is no severe neurological damage, although his doctors will be running extensive tests over the next few weeks.”

“Will he be awake when I get there?”

“I don’t know."

Sherlock considers this for a while, then asks: “Scarring?”

“Too early to tell for certain, although as you are aware, his burns have been healing quite well.”

He is silent for a while, although Mycroft already knows what the next question will be, and is not the least bit surprised that his brother seems almost afraid to ask it.

“Will he remember who I am?”

It’s a question that Mycroft is only too glad to answer.

“He asked for you by name.”

 

Hidden in the shadows, Jim watches from across the street as Sherlock gets into his brother’s car.  When it drives away, he steps out onto the pavement, just beyond the glow of a street lamp.

He looks up at the building, seeks out that one specific row of windows. That's what he's come looking for.

“So it’s true, then,” he whispers, all bile and wrath and hatred. “ _ _Gentlemen prefer blondes__.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the terminology of the Argentinian tango, Vén y Va means "come and go". The lines Peter recalls from Fawn's letter are drawn from one of my favourite poems: Ordeal, by Nina Cassian.


	16. I am gall, I am heartburn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Watson emerges from weeks of unconsciousness and slowly tries to piece together the events that have taken place since the night at the pool. Meanwhile, Peter Guillam finds himself caught in a trap.

 

Mycroft’s car swings smoothly into a dimly-lit back street lined on either side with rubbish skips and empty oil drums, a waning moon reflected in the water that has pooled on the concrete. The car pulls up in front of a large, open steel garage door.

“Go on, then,” Mycroft says as the driver opens the passenger door for Sherlock.

“You’re not coming along?”

“It’s nearly dawn, Sherlock,” he says, busying himself with straightening his tie and smoothing out his waistcoat. “I must be at work soon, or else people might begin to imagine that I actually sleep.”

“Can’t have that, can we?” Sherlock glances past the garage door and sees a figure standing in the semi-darkness there. It’s Smiley, motionless, in his wrinkled, dun-coloured coat.

Sherlock clears his throat.  “I -- uhm…”

 _Why must these things be so arduous between us_ , Mycroft thinks to himself. And then he immediately answers: _because we choose to make it so; it’s what we know_. _One step forward one day, six steps back the next._ “George will be able to brief you much better than I can, brother. I suggest that you allow him to do so at once.”

Sherlock slips out of the car without another word.

“Give John my regards,” Mycroft calls out after him.  His brother turns back briefly, acknowledges him with the barest of nods, then heads into the garage.

The driver closes the door, slides into his seat and looks at him through the rear-view mirror. “Where to, sir?”

“St. Barts, Archer, if you please.”

The driver looks puzzled for a moment. “Not Whitehall, sir?"

“I have some rather urgent business to attend to at the hospital.”

 

Smiley steps forward to meet Sherlock. “Mr. Holmes.”

“Mr. Smiley.” They shake hands, double-handed; it’s as though they haven’t seen each other for a long time, even though it was only yesterday when they last spoke. Then Smiley tilts his head slightly in the direction they’re supposed to go, and Sherlock follows. They walk through the garage, which turns out to be the entrance to an underground parking basement.

“How is he?”

“The doctors seem quite happy with what they see. All his vital signs are good. He slips in and out of consciousness and tires easily, so you may want to take things slowly. When he is conscious, he is able to communicate quite well. He is confused, however, and is trying to piece together what he remembers from his last moments of consciousness. He is uncertain about the passage of time, of course, and there are gaps in his memory which the doctors believe will be filled over time.”

They’ve entered the section of the facility that’s set up for medical purposes. Smiley leads him down a short corridor, and they stand before the door leading to John’s room.

Smiley senses Sherlock’s tension. He lays a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“It’s all right, my boy. _You’re_ not one of those gaps.” He smiles encouragingly at him, then turns and leaves.

Sherlock takes a deep breath, listens to Smiley’s footsteps fade down the corridor. Then he opens the door and walks in.

John is sitting up in bed.  His head, chest, forearms and hands are still swathed in bandages, but his face is now visible. There are patches of discolouration and peeling skin on his cheeks, forehead and neck where he was burned in the explosion. The doctors had very early on determined that the second-degree burns would heal in time, with minimal scarring. With bandaged fingers, he is shuffling around a series of coloured blocks on his hospital overbed table -- possibly one of the exercises that they’ve given him to test his motor skills and eye-hand coordination.

Sherlock is so absorbed in studying John’s condition from this distance, that he almost fails to notice that John has seen him.

“ _Oi_. You over there.” His voice is raspy from weeks of unconsciousness, his speech slow and a bit slurred, the way it is when he’s very tired, or a little drunk. But he’s smiling, and he motions to Sherlock to come forward. “Yes, you.”

Sherlock moves toward John’s bed; everything feels unreal, somehow: dream-slow, yet razor-sharp in its clarity.

“John,” he says.

“Jesus. I was worried about you. Nobody would tell me anything until that Mr. Smiley came in. He said you’d be coming to see me soon enough.” John laughs, a nervous, uncertain little titter, and then he touches Sherlock’s face, shoulder, chest, grabs the lapel of his coat. “You’re real, aren’t you? I’m not hallucinating?”

Sherlock takes his hand gently in his own. “I’m real, John. I’m right here.” He looks down at the blocks on the table, then back at his friend. Something wells up within him – gladness, gratitude, a relief so profound that it threatens to render him mute -- so he does what he’s used to doing and clamps a lid on it, seals it tight. “Occupying your time productively, I see.”

“They could have at least given me LEGOs,” John grouses, his tongue dragging on the Ls. “Can’t do anything interesting with these things.”  Crankily, he tosses a blue block across the room; it hits the wall with a thunk and falls to the floor.

Sherlock smiles. “I don’t think _interesting_ was the point.”

John smiles back, then turns serious. “Christ, Sherlock. They tell me I’ve been out for weeks.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “ _Weeks_.”

Sherlock senses his distress, but decides not to say anything that could aggravate it. Humour, then; he’s not certain it’s the option John himself would have chosen had their positions been reversed, but for now it’s the safest.

“Think of all the crap telly you missed.”

“So many makeovers, so little time,” John giggles, and Sherlock’s heart seizes at the thought that, given a slightly different set of variables, he might never have been able to hear this sound again. John tosses him a yellow block, and he catches it deftly in one hand. “So what have you been up to while I’ve been out?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Where have you been?"

"Are we going to keep asking each other questions and not answering them?"

"I don't know, are we?" John laughs. "All right, all right. I'm not too bad, considering. I'm starving, but they won’t let me eat real food yet. God knows my sense of taste and smell are distorted.” He sticks out his tongue, as though asking Sherlock to inspect it for defects. “See? My tongue is all coated. And I probably smell like a horse --"

"Nonsense, John. You smell nothing like a horse.” It’s true; while John doesn’t smell as he usually does when he’s not waking up from nearly a month in a coma, he smells fine, if a little antiseptic. “I'm an excellent horseman, and I know what horses smell like."

John laughs again, although it’s a weak little laugh. "Why am I not surprised that you would be an authority on that subject." He pauses, then looks at Sherlock – studying him with the same intensity as Sherlock studied him when he walked into the room. "When I walked in there … that look you gave me – did you really think for a moment that it was me?”

Sherlock feels a sharp twinge of regret at the memory.

“John.”

“No, don’t,” John says hastily. “I didn’t mean -- How could I possibly blame you? It’s exactly what he wanted you to think.”

“I’m sorry.” The words are said so softly that John barely catches anything but the _m_ and the _s_. “Considering what you did for me – considering _everything_ you did for me after that …”

“Now, just stop it.  All right? I’m sorry I asked. It’s just – there aren’t many things that I remember from that night. And that just happens to be one of them.” He shakes Sherlock’s arm, as though testing if he is indeed real. “Were you hurt at all?"

Sherlock shakes his head. "You pushed me into the water, so I got the least of it. Cuts and bruises, lump on the head. Mild concussion. Nothing major.” His lips curl in annoyance. “Ruined a suit."

"I thought you said nothing major."

It’s easy, so much easier than Sherlock thought it would be, picking up almost where they’d left off, slipping into their familiar rhythm. But he’s fully aware that John is fading again, so he fights the overwhelming urge to continue. _You might want to take things slowly_ , Smiley had warned him. “You should try to rest a little more,” he says softly. “No point pushing yourself too hard, too fast.”

John pulls a face in protest, but he shifts in the bed, lying back on the pillows, and Sherlock adjusts the bed controls so that he can stretch out fully. “I feel like I’ve already missed so much.”

“Don’t worry, John.” He pulls the blanket up to John’s chest, like his own mother used to do when he was young, and feeling unwell. “I promise to fill you in when you wake up.”

John reaches out with his bandaged hand. “You’ll be here?” he asks, like a child seeking reassurance. “When I wake up?”

Sherlock takes it carefully, and, without even being aware of it, holds it over his chest, above his heart.

“But where _else_ would I be?”

 

At the crack of dawn, Peter hears a loud knock on the door. He burrows deeper into the pillows, hoping that whoever it is will go away. The knocking only grows louder.

He hears Ricki calling out to him, his voice muffled by doors and walls and the space separating them.

 _Damn it to hell_.

He practically rips the door off its hinges in displeasure, and Ricki jumps back.

“Don’t you people ever sleep?”

“Mr. Smiley asked me to clear out Fawn’s flat. You know. Just in case there’s anything that shouldn’t be there. Told me to ask you if you wanted to come along.”

“I don’t. Now go away.”

“Come on, Mr. Guillam. I can’t do it alone. You knew her better, you’d know what to keep and what to throw away.”

“Throw it all away, she wouldn’t care,” he says, starting to close the door.

But Ricki’s fast, wedging his body in the gap before he can fully close it. “Mr. Guillam, please.”

“Damn it, Ricki, I said no.”

Suddenly, Ricki’s furious. He grabs Peter firmly by the arm and drops his voice to a pitch and volume that stop Peter cold and force him to take notice.

“Now, you listen to me, you bloody wanker. I’m not talking as your lackey now, I’m talking to you man to man. She saved your sorry arse countless times, and she always had your back, in the field or at the Circus. But you couldn’t be arsed to attend her service, and now you can’t be arsed to help me clear her flat. She deserved better from you, _you fucking tosser_ ,” and those last three words catch on a sob. “So you’d better get your clothes on and come with me, or God help me, I’m going to drag you out here in your pyjamas and _make_ you. Even if it kills me. You understand?”

At any other time in the past, Peter might have beaten Ricki to a pulp for speaking to him like this. Now all he does is yank his arm away and glower at him.

“Wait here.”

 

The sun has just broken over the horizon when Mycroft arrives at St. Barts. Lestrade meets him at the back entrance.  For this early in the morning, Lestrade already looks tired; Mycroft reads in his face, in rapid succession, chronic sleeplessness, a series of long nights on the job, too much coffee and not enough water, an horrendous diet and the beginnings of a liver ailment that could yet be checked if he eased back on his drinking.

He wisely refrains from articulating any of these observations. Lestrade is not a particularly brilliant detective, but he's dogged, completely dedicated to his work and utterly unconcerned about being made to look like a fool -- mostly by Sherlock -- if it means that justice is served and someone guilty is locked away. For these, he has Mycroft's respect -- something not very easily earned.

“How is the young woman?” he asks instead.

“She’s fine but pretty shaken. Says he threatened to kill her.” They make their way through a maze of corridors. “I’ve asked the hospital administrators to pull the CCTV footage so we can study it.  But I figured you might want a copy, too. It should be ready for you by the time we’re done here.”

“Thank you.”

The elevator takes them a few floors up to the administrative floor, where they proceed to a small office.

Molly Hooper is seated at one end of a table, clutching a mug of tea in one hand and a wad of tissue in the other. Her eyes and nose are red and swollen from crying. She looks up when they enter; when she sees Mycroft, she starts crying again. Lestrade hurries over to her, puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, makes soft, reassuring noises. She seems to respond well, and Mycroft stands quietly by until he decides she’s sufficiently composed to answer questions.

“Miss Hooper,” he says in as soothing a voice as he can muster. “I am terribly sorry to hear of what happened.” He pulls up a chair and sits near her, but not too near that she’ll be intimidated. “I need to know exactly what he told you.”

She sniffs, wipes her nose with tissue. “He didn’t really say much. He wanted to see Moran’s body.”

“And?”

“He said he should have killed me while he had the chance.” She starts tearing up again, but she struggles to hold it back. “He said he still might.”

Mycroft says nothing for a while, and then asks, “When you showed him the body – did he say anything?”

“He talked to it. Like it could still hear him, you know? He was whispering most of the time, I didn’t catch much.”

“What did you catch, if anything at all?”

“He said he was sorry, and that he’d made a mistake. Then he asked me who killed him. I told him she was dead, and that she fell off the roof with him. I said … she was some kind of government agent.” She looks up at Mycroft. “That’s right, isn’t it? An intelligence agent?”

Mycroft doesn’t answer. “Did he say anything else?"

“He said he would make them pay.”

“Who?”

“All of them.”

When the conversation is over, Lestrade sees Mycroft out.

“I trust you’ll provide some form of protection for the young woman?” he asks, as he puts his gloves on.

“Yes, we’re on it.” Lestrade runs a hand carelessly through his graying hair in frustration. “So clearly, this thing isn’t over yet.”

Mycroft tugs the leather over his wrist with a little more force than is necessary. It’s the only outward sign of his unease, but one that Lestrade is rather too alert to miss.

“Clearly.”

 

Ricki unlocks the door and enters Fawn’s flat, Peter following close behind.

The first thing they notice is the absence of that musty smell common in a long-enclosed space. They can tell from how cold it is that several windows have been left open.

The flat is tiny, almost rigorously anonymous and neutral, like a mid-range serviced apartment. Small living space. A corner where she could sit to have a meal. Another corner where she could work on a computer. A single bedroom and bath. A kitchen with little more than a microwave, a small refrigerator, a single-burner stove and a kettle.

There’s only one remarkable thing about the flat: a wall of bookshelves, all of them filled with books. It’s like her featureless, forgettable car with the fuzzy yellow dice.

But someone else has been here, and left the flat in disarray. Some of the books are lying on the floor, ripped apart at the spines. A lamp has been broken; the computer desk has been toppled over.

Ricki points to the bedroom and Peter nods.

When he walks in, he sees the mess that Moran has left behind. He doesn’t know with absolute certainty that it was Moran; but someone had come here either to find out everything he could about Fawn, or more likely to hurt or kill her. And on the long list of people who bore her a grudge, he would have been right at the top. He wouldn’t have found anything; she was far too careful. But since she wasn’t home, he defiled everything he touched: her clothes, her bed, her underwear.

The state of the room was a message, one that she could not possibly have misread. The thought makes Peter’s gut clench.

He moves across the room to stand near the windows she had left open.

“Doesn’t feel like `er in here anymore.”

Sometimes, Peter admits grudgingly to himself, Ricki is a lot smarter than he looks.

“Tell George to get Housekeeping to clear it all out,” he instructs, surprising himself with how steady and distant his voice sounds. “There won’t be anything in here for anyone to find.”

“What will they do with it all, Mr. Guillam?”

Ricki makes it sound like a lot, but really, there isn’t much. Except for all the books, Fawn had apparently lived like a monk. _Like someone who was just passing through,_ Peter thinks. “They can donate what’s left of the books to a school. And burn the rest.” He looks out through the windows, stares at the street below. “You’re right,” he says quietly. “There’s nothing left of her here.”

Ricki stands at the door with his hands in his pockets.

“You’re not the only one who lost `er, Mr. Guillam.”

Peter glances back at him. “I’m … aware of that, Ricki.”

Ricki looks around the room, just so he doesn’t have to look at Peter.

“We were good together, all of us. We did all right.” He chuckles. “I know I was always your biggest headache. But she – she was good at running interference, you see? I’m sure she must’ve kept you from killing me once or twice.”

Peter laughs, not unkindly. “More than once or twice, Ricki.”

Ricki laughs, too, and then they fall silent again.

“Yes,” Peter nods. “We did all right.”

Ricki looks down at his feet. “Mr. Smiley could do with a visit from you.”

Peter is so still for so long that Ricki half-wonders if he’s fallen asleep, standing by the windows like that.

“Mr. Guillam?”

Peter finally stirs. “Why don’t you go on ahead, Ricki? Don’t forget to tell George what I said. About Housekeeping.”

He stands there for a long time after Ricki leaves.

When he lets himself out of the flat, there are three children – two boys and a girl -- standing in the corridor, staring at him. They are all beautiful: wide, dark eyes, thick black hair, _café au lait_ skin.

The youngest, a little boy of about four or five, runs up to him.

“ _Eres tú_ ,” he says, pointing a tiny finger in Peter’s face.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks, looking down at him.

The girl, who is about 13, comes forward. She takes the little boy by the hand and hoists him up on her hip, watching Peter the whole time.

“She said you’d never come here unless something had happened to her.”

“Do you know me?”

She nods. “She told us about you.”

The other child, a boy of about seven or eight, also comes closer. _“ ¿Está muerta? ¿Es por eso que estás aquí?_”

Peter shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t –“

“He’s asking you if she’s dead. If that’s why you’re here.”

“Yes.” He pauses, then nods slowly. “Yes, she’s dead.”

She bites her lip. “Did it hurt?”

_What do I tell them? Christ, what do people normally say when children ask questions like that?_

“It was … quick.”

The girl turns to the older boy. " _¿_ _Dónde lo pusiste? Ve a buscarla._ ”

The boy runs into an adjacent flat, emerges a minute or two later with something in his hand. He hands it to Peter.

“ _Dejó algo para_ _tí_.”

He stares down at it. It’s a photograph, from many years ago.

The girl tells him: “She said if you ever came here, we should give it to you.”

The boy is speaking again, very fast. " _Ella dijo que hay que botar todo excepto esto. Ésta es la única cosa importante que tenía._ ”

The girl translates for Peter again. “She said you should throw everything away except this. This is the only important thing she owned.”

Peter bites it back, hard as he can, so it doesn’t spill over. It’s almost impossible to tear his eyes away from the photograph, but he forces himself to put it away in his pocket.

“Thank you,” he says, hoping they don’t notice the slight tremor in his voice.

But they do.

The little boy reaches out, and the girl gestures to Peter to take him; he’s so stunned that it takes him a moment to respond. The child wraps his arms around Peter’s neck, and then the other two children press forward as well, the boy’s head on his hip, the girl’s on his chest.

Nobody says anything. Nobody lets go.

 

Sherlock has drifted into sleep in an uncomfortable, unyielding chair not far from John’s bedside. His long, angular frame is unfolded upon it like an open fan knife.

He’s always been able to descend quickly into slow-wave sleep when he needs it: deep, intense, refreshing sleep in short bursts of thirty minutes to three hours. There are times when he allows himself the luxury of a full eight hours, but often, that’s more than he really needs. He’s also able to come out of that delta sleep quite quickly, without the usual momentary disorientation. He’s trained himself from childhood to be able to do this.

He wakes, fully alert, when he hears John groaning in his sleep. Despite some soreness in his neck and back from spending hours in a chair handcrafted in hell, he moves quickly toward John, who’s shifting restlessly in the bed. He says “Sh – Shh” repeatedly as he dreams, his face creased in apparent distress.

Sherlock lays a cool hand on John’s forehead; he says nothing, only waits.  In a moment or two, that simple action stills John’s limbs and soothes his unquiet mind. Sherlock keeps his hand there. He counts slowly backward from ten to one. At two, John opens his eyes. He’s confused at first, but quickly recognises Sherlock.

“Was I dreaming?”

“More like a nightmare.” He removes his hand from John’s forehead, placing it instead on his shoulder. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

John stares up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember. “It’s not very clear. But we were at the pool.” He turns to Sherlock, eyes wide with concern. “You drowned. Lestrade was trying to revive you.”

Sherlock nods. “I was hit on the head by a falling beam. I blacked out for a while. Lestrade told me what happened later. You must have seen it before you lost consciousness.”

John clamps his eyes shut. “Let’s never do anything as stupid as that again.”

Sherlock smiles, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “We can try, at least.” He quickly changes his tone. “How are you feeling?”

“Only slightly less slow and stupid than I did a few hours ago. Wait, what time is it? How long have I been out?”

“Ten hours.”

“What? No. Ten hours?” John is incredulous; he casts a glance at the windows, and true enough, darkness has begun to fall outside. “Christ. Why didn’t anyone wake me?”

“Your doctor came in twice, and he decided it was best to let you rest as much as you could.”

“And you’ve been here all this time?”

“As I told you earlier, John, where else would I be?” Sherlock finds himself being unusually gentle. “Now, would you like to sit up?”

“Please.”

Sherlock adjusts the controls on the hospital bed, then helps to rearrange the pillows to support John’s back. “How’s that?”

“Thank you, that’s fine.” John pats an empty space on the left side of the bed, inviting Sherlock to sit, and he does. “So. Bring me up to speed? Have they caught Moriarty?”

Sherlock stares down at his hands. “John. Take a look around you. You do realise that this isn’t … a hospital, don’t you? Not a regular one, in any case.”

John’s brows knit together. “So… it’s some kind of … I’m sorry, Sherlock, I’m really at a loss.”

“It’s a Circus facility in Brixton.”

“Circus?”

“Secret Intelligence Service. MI6.”

John gapes at him.

“Moriarty was apparently working for, or with, Moscow Centre’s spymaster – a man known only as Karla.”

“Jesus, Sherlock. So we’re here for our protection, then? That means the pool –“

“Was intended to have been the end of us.”

“But why? Why have us running around trying to solve all those puzzles?”

“Because he has a warped sense of humour?” Sherlock looks at John. “He’d received instructions to either eliminate me, or throw me off track.”

“Wait, hold on. Throw you off track about what?”

“At first I thought it was the sale of warheads to the Vietnamese.”

John is shaking his head now. “Okay, hang on. MI6? Moscow Centre? _Warheads_? Sherlock, are you sure that was just a _mild_ concussion?”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, John. Look, if you’d like me to wait until you’re feeling better –“

“Don’t.” There it is in his eyes, a brief glimpse of the quiet menace that always stuns Sherlock. “Just don’t you dare, Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock smiles.

“Well. You already know the beginning. Shall I start at the middle, then?”

 

Smiley is watching the reel yet again. That’s the seventh time this evening, through four glasses of Connie’s scotch. He’ll probably ask her to convert the reel to another format very soon. It’s nearly two decades years old, and he’s afraid it will fall to bits.  That would be a shame. Over the years, they’ve actually tried to find others, but they haven’t had any success. All the records were wiped clean. He and Control had always wondered why they would put it on a reel in the first place, but later on they supposed it would have been easier to control its reproduction.

He hears a knock on the door. _Who could that be at this hour_? He hauls himself up off the sofa and shuffles to answer it.

“Peter?”

Peter is standing at the doorstep in the bitter chill, nervously puffing away on a cigarette. He blows out a lungful of smoke, then asks, “May I come in?”

“Of course.” Smiley steps aside to let him pass, then closes the door. “How long have you been standing out there? It’s terribly cold.” He leads the way to the living room, and Peter follows.

“Drink?”

Peter nods. “Thanks.” He accepts the offered glass, drains the contents in two gulps, and then points to the projector screen. “What’s that for?”

Smiley turns to look. “That?” He sits down on the sofa, motions for Peter to take a nearby chair. “Don’t think you’ve ever seen this before, have you?”

When Peter is settled in, Smiley starts the reel again.

It’s coloured but grainy, old film stock; Peter recognises the location as Moscow’s old Dinamo Stadium from possibly twenty years ago, long before its demolition. There’s a large audience gathered, people waving small flags and cheering.

Smiley advances the reel until he’s satisfied he’s hit the right place.

The camera cuts to a young girl of about thirteen or fourteen, and Smiley hears Peter’s swift, sharp intake of breath, sees him out of the corner of his eye as he moves to the edge of his seat in keen anticipation.

The girl is small, slim, wearing a black competition leotard, sleek black hair swept back and up into a ponytail. There’s no tension on her face or in her body, just an inner calm and quiet strength, as she strides past other young gymnasts, coaches and competition officials toward the balance beam at the centre of the field.

Someone announces her name to the stadium and as she stands ready at the beam, a hush falls over the crowd.

With a running start and a leap from a ramp, she mounts the beam with the efficient grace so familiar to Peter.  Her limbs extend, fly, through full splits and back flips and jumps; she attains great altitude, and a daring side-somersault elicits a collective gasp from the audience. She glides into a beautifully articulated arabesque that draws applause.

“Pay attention to this part,” Smiley instructs. “When she dismounts.” The light from the screen flickers in his glasses, Fawn in all her fourteen-year old glory reflected in each lens. She moves easily from movement to movement and then burns through a series of cartwheels before dismounting with a flawless triple twisting back somersault.

What follows is several beats of absolute silence, as though all life inside that stadium has stopped.

And then the crowd roars, a great wave of sound that ripples through to Peter and Smiley from the speakers, over the distance of years. And Fawn: so young, so small and yet so powerful, breathing heavily from her exertions. She smiles -- _beams_ at the crowd, acknowledging their approval with a wave of her hand.  

It’s the first real smile that Peter has ever seen on that face. And it is glorious. Incandescent.

Smiley stops the reel, turns off the projector and looks at Peter.

“Where did you find this?”

“Control had it for years. It was the only trace of her that he was ever able to find.”

Peter stares down at the amber liquid in his glass. “Did he ever tell you how he found her? Why he gave her that name?”

Smiley shakes his head. “How he found her -- No. There were a great many things that Control was very close about. She was one of them. Although he did tell me about the name.” He reaches for his glass, drinks what’s left in it. “He said she was half-dead when she was brought to him. Weak and unsteady. Thin arms. Thin legs. Huge eyes. Hollow cheeks.”

Peter’s face lights up as he connects the dots. “She looked like a newborn … _fawn_.”

Smiley nods. “And the name stuck.” He chuckles, remembering the old Circus chief. “You can’t say Control didn’t have a sense of humour.”

Peter thinks about this for a while, then asks, "And the not talking?"

"Selective mutism. She got better at controlling it over time, with therapy. I think she simply found it easier not to talk."

They sit in silence for a long while, each of them lost in thought. Then Peter sets his empty glass on the low table between them. “I’m sorry, George.”

“Whatever for, Peter?”

“The things I said that day. When she – you see, I wasn’t …” His voice drifts off and the words hang in the air.

“Peter.”

There are things that Smiley wishes he were better able to express -- or able to express _at all_ \-- but he’s never been terribly good at that sort of thing. If he were, perhaps he might have been better able to hold his marriage together. Better able to feel like he belonged somewhere, anywhere, instead of being forever the outsider. It’s partly his upbringing and his generation, but mostly his nature. He fails at it at the most crucial times, when something needs to be said, but he holds back; it’s how he imagines it must feel like to swallow masonry nails. Someday, he reflects, the accumulated weight and poison of those nails will kill him.

He reaches for Peter’s glass, tops it up. “Here. Have another one.”

Peter takes it, stares down at the contents. “I won’t be coming in for a while yet, George. You understand, don’t you?”

Smiley leans back. “There’s no rush, my boy.”

 

Peter barely remembers how he got home. After they’d finished Connie’s bottle, they had started on another one. They barely talked; there hadn’t been much to say. Or perhaps there had been too much and they were too cowardly in their marrows to say it.

There was a taxi, of course, he’d been too drunk to drive. The driver had helped him up to his flat, and he’d paid and sent him on his way. Then he had slumped on the sofa without even bothering to remove his coat, and passed out.

Now he feels a cool, light touch on his face and when he looks up, it’s her: the fourteen-year-old girl in the leotard, perched on the back of the sofa.

“Hello,” she says. Her voice is so different, clear and high, sweet and young.

“Hey.”

“You drank a lot.”

“A _hell_ of a lot,” he agrees pleasantly.

“I wish you hadn’t.” She’s sad when she says it.

He reaches out to touch her hand. “Oh, don’t be mad. It was just –“

“ _Don’t_ say it was just one time,” she says, frowning. “You’ve been drunk most of the time I’ve been gone.”

Peter sighs. “I suppose I’ll stop eventually.”

Then it’s grown-up Fawn again, and he can read an icy sternness in her impassive face and her low, gravelly voice. “You should have stopped yesterday. Now I can’t help you.”

“Help me?”

“You need to wake up, Peter.”

“Why? I’m drunk."

“Look at the sofa, Peter. Notice anything different about it?”

He blinks at her, then at the sofa. “Different? It’s …” He stares hard at it, but nothing comes to him.

“You’re in danger, Peter. Wake up.” She strikes him hard across the face, and his head snaps to one side.

“What the –“ Before he can finish, she strikes him again, and he is jolted out of his stupor.

A figure is looming over him, and it takes him a moment or two to focus. When he recognises who it is, he struggles ferociously to get up. But he realises too late that his arms and legs are bound. That the extreme sluggishness and inertia he feels are not due solely to Smiley's scotch. And worst of all: that this is not his flat.

“Ooohh, I can see why he likes you,” Jim Moriarty coos at him. “You’re _very_ pretty.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is borrowed from Gerald Manley Hopkins' "I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day". Again, my schoolroom Spanish is horribly rusty. And everything I know about gymnastics, I learned from YouTube.


	17. Dance with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The closer everyone gets to the end of the game, the clearer it becomes where their weaknesses lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: sadism, torture and utter mindf*ckery ahead. If these things bother you, please don't continue.

Karla is often to be found in a small training camp outside Moscow. It is a camp that he founded himself, to train agents for his Thirteenth Directorate. His office is small, square and basic: a desk with a computer, a chair, a lamp, a filing cabinet, a bookshelf.  There is a small heater in one corner, but it is rarely used. The only luxury, if it can be called that, is a window that he leaves open at all times.

He is staring out of that window now, at the thick layer of snow and ice that has blanketed the ground.  It is freezing cold, but he is wearing only a thin, gray wool jacket over his shirt. His hands are clasped together behind his back.

It has been more than six weeks since he last heard word of Tatiana. He’s had to be careful. He’d had to pull back the man he’d assigned to check on her every fortnight, when Madame Ostrakova began seeking help for herself and for her daughter. There was always the danger of discovery.

But six weeks is too long, and he cannot afford to wait any longer. He has to do something.

And then there is the matter of James Moriarty.

The man has been elusive, yes, but he’s become … erratic. Grief, perhaps, and hatred. Karla knows only too well how extreme emotions, extreme obsession, can warp the judgment of even the most brilliant, capable men.  

And James Moriarty is nothing if not extreme, no matter how he might pretend to be otherwise.

 _Weakness_ , Karla reflects. _Human weakness is the coin of my trade_. _And I hoard it like a miser, to be spent at just the right moment._

There is a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

It is one of his newer aides, Grechko: young, intelligent, very ambitious. Karla knows that this one will eventually become a liability. He has already planned to dismiss him in a year or so; he will make it look like a promotion, something frontline and visible, somewhere he can put his height and good looks to use.

“I have a message from Col. Zotov,” he says.

“Leave it on the table,” Karla answers, turning back to the view outside his window.

Grechko does as he’s told, then lingers a little. Like everyone in the camp, he’s in awe of the man they call, alternately, the General or the Priest. He thinks _priest_ is more suitable: he’s small, lithe, quiet as a monk and just as ascetic in his habits.

Grechko knows that getting in his good graces could pave his way to something bigger and better than just delivering messages and filing documents and licking the boots of his superiors. He needs to get the man to notice him, to like him. Perhaps to like him _very much_.

He makes an elaborate show of being cold, rubbing his hands together and stamping his feet. “It’s freezing in here. Shall I turn on your heater?” He can't quite bring himself to call him _comrade_ ; it doesn't seem fitting.

At first, the man doesn’t respond, doesn’t even show any outward sign that he’s heard.

Then he turns very slowly to Grechko, and the young aide cannot mistake the look of cold dismissal on his face.

Grechko is rendered immobile by that look; he actually feels the chill in his bones and his blood. He stands there, locked in that icy gaze, before finally finding his legs and scurrying away, closing the door carefully behind him. For the rest of his life, he will deny to himself the fact that when he left that room that day, he wet his trousers in the corridor.

When the aide has left, Karla leaves the window and walks over to his desk. He examines the envelope, then tears it open. It’s a short message in Zotov’s broad, inelegant handwriting.

_G. awaits instructions._

_He is doing better, but I can’t leave him yet._

_You could come by to see him._

_You could come by to see me._

_You could grant me the courtesy of a response._

_You are being deliberately perverse._

_Fine. Don’t respond. I have better things to do._

Jim tosses Peter’s mobile phone aside with a snicker. “He’s very unhappy with you, Peter dear.” He traces delicate little figure eights in the air with the barrel of a gun. “A little lovers’ quarrel so soon in your blossoming relationship. It’s almost _unbearably_ sweet.”

The effects of the drug are wearing off, and Peter’s eyes are becoming accustomed to the semi-darkness. He squirms on the cold metal chair to which his hands and feet are tightly, painfully bound.

“What do you want from me?”

Jim feigns shock with wide eyes and open mouth. “Peter. Please. Tell me you’re not as stupid as you are good-looking.”

“What can I say?” Peter says, his words fairly dripping with contempt.  “I’m dim. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me.”

Jim brings his face close to Peter’s – close enough that his lips brush against Peter’s cheekbone. “You stole something that was mine. I don’t like it when people steal what’s mine. It’s – ill-mannered.”

The madman dances away just as Peter draws back to give him a head-butt. “Peter Guillam!” he scolds. “Naughty, naughty boy!” He moves like lightning, striking Peter hard on the cheek with the grip of the gun. The force of the blow causes Peter’s head to whip hard to the right; within seconds, his teeth and gums are stained with blood.

Jim kneels in front of him, resting his elbows on Peter’s thighs and gazing up into his face. “Peter. _Peter!_ This is so unnecessary,” he says earnestly. “We could be good friends, you and I. I wish you could see that.”

Peter spits the blood that has pooled in his mouth onto Jim’s face.

“Sherlock isn’t yours. He never will be.”

Jim’s eyes narrow into thin slits, then, and behind them the soulless gleam of cold obsidian. “What makes you think I was talking about our friend, the consulting detective?” he asks, ripping a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the blood and spit off his face. He stands, examines the stained cloth with mild distaste.

“Of course,” Peter says, understanding now. “ _Moran_.”

Watching James Moriarty is like seeing a pendulum oscillate from one side to the opposite, with an incredibly short period of vibration; one moment he appears perfectly calm and reasonable, and seconds later he’s barking mad. Right now, Peter is appalled that the man is _giggling_ at him like a schoolgirl. “Peter. If looks could kill, you’d have my entrails all over your lap.” He reaches out to stroke the spy’s fine, soft, golden hair with a tenderness bordering on the erotic.

And just like that, the pendulum swings.

“Try and keep up, Peter. I don’t like having to constantly explain myself.” Quickly, brutally, he forces Peter’s mouth open and stuffs the handkerchief inside, gagging him as he struggles. “No, no, honey. I don’t want you damaging that pretty face. That’s _my_ job.” He dances away; seconds later Peter hears a switch being flipped and he’s blinded by the glare of very strong lights.

“Look around you,” Jim trills gleefully, waving a hand around the room. “I’ve created this charming little tableau just for you!”

Peter blinks hard, turns away from the searing light to look over his left shoulder.  What he sees there makes him struggle even harder against his bonds, as the gag muffles his voice.

Jim comes up behind him quickly, turns his head to the right to show him what’s on that side of the room. “You see, my lovely little Scalphunter? We’re going to have so much _fun_.” He presses his lips into Peter’s hair in a travesty of a kiss as Peter continues to squirm in the chair. “Peter. _Peter_.” His voice is suddenly stern, as though he’s talking to a particularly ill-behaved child. “Will you be still for a moment? Can you do that for me? You need to listen now because I have something important to tell you.”

When Peter stops moving, he whispers in his ear. “You are a man of many secrets, Peter Guillam. Your work is all about secrets, and your life is all about secrets. One secret on top of another. Layer after layer of lies.”

He kisses Peter’s hair again, and Peter fights not to throw up because the handkerchief balled up in his mouth will make him choke on his own vomit. Sweat is pouring off his temples, down his back; the armpits of his shirt are soaked.

“Do you know what’s going to happen to you here?” Jim asks.

Peter shakes his head.

“I’m going to peel it all back, Peter. Every single layer. And when I get down to the very core of you, I will set it on fire.” He giggles again. “The last person I promised to do this to said he didn’t have a heart. But you – you, my darling little spy, most definitely have one. And I will reduce it to ashes.”

When Peter starts to struggle again, Jim presses his lips to his ear. “Hush, hush. Don’t you see? I can’t get at the woman who killed Seb. But I can get at you. And I can get to George Smiley through you. And I can get to the Holmes boys through you.”

He laughs. “Do you see, Peter? You are the gateway. You are the cornerstone.” He lifts his arms high in the air, as though preaching to a crowd, and twirls around. “ _You are the rock, Peter_ ," he intones in mock solemnity, " _and upon this rock I will build my church of destruction._ ”

The door opens. Two burly men walk in as Jim straightens his jacket. Peter tries to stem a rising tide of panic as the men come toward him. Jim walks to the door, and Peter sees that there’s a woman standing there: slim, around Jim’s height, dark-haired, sultry and beautiful. She smiles as he approaches her; when she moves, Peter sees that she’s wearing a black leather body suit and holding a riding crop.

“Shall I go and soften him up a bit for you, then?” she asks, her voice low and rich and insinuating.

“Yes, my dear.” Jim glances over his shoulder at Peter. “ _I think he’s ready for his close-up_.”

 

Smiley is sitting in a coffee shop not far from the institution. He’s chosen a table right beside the front window.

The coffee shop is frankly awful. The tables are sticky, as are the floors, and he has spotted several dead ants in the sugar. Tinny music from hidden speakers. A fine layer of dust on the window, thin enough to see through, thick enough to be noticeable. The heavy, sickening smell of reused grease wafting in from the kitchen.

The waitress is a young, surly, heavy-breasted blonde with pockmarked cheeks, clearly related to the middle-aged, surly blonde man filling in the crossword at the cash register. When she sets Smiley’s coffee carelessly down in front of him, some of the liquid sloshes over the lip of the cup and onto the saucer, and from the saucer on to the table. If she sees the look he gives her, she ignores it.

At the nearest table, a group of young Indian professionals, all dark hair and beautiful dark eyes and long scarves and heavy coats. It’s a busy table, everyone’s eating something: croissants with butter, full English breakfasts, sausages and eggs. They keep the waitress on her toes. Everyone is conversing loudly; they speak English with the same quick rhythm of their own native Tamil, the syllables running together fast and fluid. Even more fascinating to Smiley is that they are all talking at the same time, with nary a pause, and yet they all seem perfectly able to understand each other, to follow the threads of conversation without missing a beat.

At a table further away are three nuns. The conversation there is hushed, almost secretive – almost, Smiley thinks, like the conversations of his trade. The nuns have hiked their sleeves up to their elbows; no doubt their table is as sticky as his. He looks away before any of them even glance in his direction, careful not to call attention to himself.                                                                            

Smiley’s mobile phone beeps, and he slips it out of his coat pocket. Not a text alert, just a periodic alert for his encrypted email notifications. He scrolls quickly through them: some routine Circus business, the latest electronic harangue from Oliver Lacon at the Cabinet Office over expenditures, and – good grief – one touting what appears to be a BDSM site. He must talk to the IT lads about this one; it’s a bit beyond the pale that something like this could have gotten through the Circus firewall.

But right now Smiley has more important things to worry about.

A van pulls up in front of the coffee shop; Ricki is driving, Mendel in the passenger seat. Smiley sees them, they see him; as procedure goes in these situations, they don’t acknowledge each other’s presence. Mendel swings out of the van with a newspaper tucked under his arm.  He disappears off to the left of the window. Ricki climbs out of the van a moment later, fishes a cigarette and a lighter from the pockets of his denim jacket, and lights up.

Smiley glances at his watch. It’s almost time.

Moments later, a plump, balding man arrives outside the coffee shop on a bicycle. He stops not far from the van and spends a few moments chaining up the bike to a stand. Ricki appears not to spare him a glance, although Smiley is certain that he is paying close attention.

The bell above the door jangles as the man enters the coffee shop. He asks the waitress for coffee in heavily accented English. Russian who speaks German; Smiley knows as much. Possessive wife who thinks she owns him; rebels by bedding his secretaries and anyone else who’s willing.

“Anton,” Smiley calls out quietly. "Anton Grigoriev."

The man turns to look at him. Something about Smiley compels him to come forward, knitting his brows together. “Yes. Do I know you?”

Smiley holds out a hand to him but does not rise. “Yes, we met at an embassy event last year. Charity gala. You had brought in the Bolshoi – my wife was ecstatic.”

“Ah, yes,” the man said, pretending to remember while still trying to place Smiley. He takes Smiley’s hand and shakes it limply.

“Would you join me? Plenty of room at this table.”

He’s suspicious, and he doesn’t hide it very well. Still, he takes a seat opposite Smiley, curiosity overriding suspicion. “I think I do know you from somewhere. But not from the gala.”

The waitress brings the man’s coffee, deposits it on the table with the same enthusiasm that she had handed Smiley his coffee earlier.  He waits until she leaves before answering him. “Wasn’t it? I could have sworn it was. Oh, well.” He shrugs. “It’s a revolving door, isn’t it?”

All at once, the man’s face turns ashen. “You. I _know_ you.” He starts to rise, but with one hand and just the barest of touches, Smiley stops him cold.

“I have a gun, Anton. If I were you, I wouldn’t make a fuss. Even if you did make it through the door, you couldn’t possibly get away from my men waiting outside.”

Anton Grigoriev snarls at him under his breath. “I am a diplomat. You have no right to detain me.”

“I just want to have a little chat, Anton.”

“You have no right,” he repeats.

Smiley nods. “Very well.” He fishes his mobile phone out of his pocket. “I’ll just tell my men to move in on your wife and child.”

The man’s eyes widen in fear. “No, wait. What are you doing? You think you can intimidate me like this? Who do you think you are?”

Smiley looks at him, but says nothing; merely waits.

It’s enough.

The list of the man’s weaknesses is long, and Smiley knows them by heart now: a wife whom he despises but cannot live without, a child who despises him, a fairly lavish lifestyle not in keeping with Socialist austerity, stolen private moments with random women. Weakness is the currency of Smiley’s profession; if there’s anything in this life that he understands, it is knowing how to find it, how much of it to use and when to use it.

The man continues to protest, but he knows he’s already lost. “What do you want from me? I am merely an attaché.”

“And I merely want to talk.”

 

Sherlock is standing by the window in John’s room. John is improving quickly, although the doctors still advise that he be allowed plenty of rest. They say they’ll transfer him to a proper hospital as soon as they get clearance, but Sherlock isn’t sure this is the wisest thing. The doctors are the best that the Circus and Mycroft can secure, and John is in perfectly competent hands here. More importantly, he’s safe. Sherlock wants to speak with Smiley about this, but he has neither seen nor heard from him in two days.

And Peter. Peter has been ignoring all his attempts at communication. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that this is a trifle upsetting, in light of all that has happened between them in such a short span of time. But Sherlock is nothing if not a proud man; if Peter Guillam refuses to be reasonable, there is no point forcing the issue.

Or is there? These are the facts: Peter Guillam is a man in mourning – for a lost lover, for a dead friend, for the shattered illusions of his life. He finds comfort for a night, yet even that appears to have been taken away from him all too soon.

He is entitled to be unreasonable, Sherlock supposes.

And then, of course, there is John to consider.

“Hey,” John says.

Sherlock turns around, slightly surprised that he’s awake. “John.”

John stifles a yawn. “You were a million miles away there. What’s the matter?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing that should concern you. How are you feeling?”

“Nope, don’t do that,” John says firmly. “Don’t treat me like a child or an invalid. Something’s been bothering you. I want to know what it is.”

“Why would you think that?”

John shoots him a look that says, _I may not be a genius but I’ve learnt a thing or two about reading you_. “You’ve been … distracted. Checking your phone more often than usual, like you’re waiting for someone to call or text. When you get a text message, you always seem just a little bit disappointed after you read it. Like it’s not what or who you’d like it to be.” He folds his arms across his chest and sticks his chin out in a kind of challenge. “So come on, now, out with it.”

Sherlock feels genuinely at a loss. He’s not a man for running away from a challenge, but if he could run away from this one, he would. He would welcome any interruption right now, even Mycroft, but the longer he waits, the more he realises that this cup will not pass from him.

He sits at the foot of John’s bed and says quietly, “I think I’ve … met someone.”

 _Of course_. John nods slowly. “This -- Peter. From the Circus. Peter Guillam.”

Sherlock looks at him, astonished.

“What? Who else, then? When you were telling me everything that happened while I was unconscious, you – the way you talked about him, the way you said his name …” John pauses, weighing his words carefully. “I mean, it _seemed_ pretty obvious to me.”

“John.”

John sees his friend looking so utterly brave and so completely bewildered at the same time. He’s always believed that at one time or another in his life, someone or something had convinced Sherlock Holmes that he was unlovable and incapable of love. So he’d crossed it off his list – that list everyone has of what they think they need to make life happy, or bearable at the very least. He can see Sherlock whittling down that list every year of his life, until it’s down to the barest minimum: his work, a roof over his head, clothes, perhaps the eventual possibility of friendship – nothing more.  For someone who holds entire worlds inside his head, Sherlock’s own real world -- outside of his work, that is -- is narrow and austere and Spartan.

How often in the last year, and how fervently, John has hoped that this world would expand somehow. And yet, now that it apparently has, he cannot help but feel a surprising sense of regret: that this had happened while he was asleep, and most of all, that it had happened not because of him.

“Sherlock, this is a good thing,” he says encouragingly, with far more enthusiasm than he actually feels. “You needn’t have been afraid to tell me.”

Sherlock studies his face. “John. I couldn’t tell you because –“

Sherlock’s phone vibrates in his pocket. John motions for him to take it. Sherlock checks quickly – a text message from Mycroft, nothing important, and then he notices several email notifications. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then a link to what appears to be – yes, a pornographic site. He puts the phone away impatiently.

“John, Peter is –“

John shakes his head. “No. You don’t owe me any explanations, Sherlock. You deserve this. Nobody deserves this more than you. And I am happy for you.”

“There’s nothing to be happy about yet, John,” Sherlock insists, gritting his teeth. “I wish you’d stop being so cheerful. This is not  …” He takes a deep breath. “This is a confusing time for me. Can’t you see?”

Of course he can see, better than anyone ever could. “I understand, Sherlock. All I’m saying is – I want you … to enjoy this. To be happy.” It’s so much harder to say than he thinks it ought to be, even though he means it with all the sincerity that he can muster.

 “Sentiment,” Sherlock mutters, almost in disgust. “I’ll never understand it. It’s muddled and chaotic and so damned unpredictable. How do you people handle it? It’s like stapling custard to a chalkboard.”

John is long past being offended when Sherlock lumps him along with _you people_ ; he knows there’s no offense meant. He laughs, and he hopes that his laughter doesn’t come out so forced and unnatural that it betrays what he feels. “What I’m trying to say is, I hope you don’t rule this out simply because it’s outside your sphere of experience.”

Sherlock stares down at his hands. “And this would be all right? With you?”

What John _wants_ to say is, _I no longer have a choice in the matter_.

What he _does_ say is: “Why wouldn’t it be?”

 

Connie is in her office when Ricki sticks his head in the door without knocking.

“Ricki!” she squeals. “You rascal. Come to visit old Connie, have you?”

“Hey, Connie.” He shuffles in, clearly hung-over, if the red-rimmed eyes and generally undone appearance are any indication. “D’you know when Peter gets back?” He looks around the drab room, at the groaning shelves, as though he can find his superior hiding somewhere in there.

“Well, I don’t know, Ricki. Could be a while. What is it, what’s wrong?”

He waves a sheaf of papers at her. “Housekeeping are after me for my expenses. All this bloody red tape. I need his signature on my claims or else I won’t get any money back. And I’m skint, Connie.”

Connie shakes her head. Ricki is forever skint; it’s like saying he is blonde, or good-looking, or male.  “It’s Lacon’s doing, I bet. He’s been nagging at George about our expenditures again. Says we have to tighten our purse strings.”

“I don’t have any purse strings to tighten, Con,” he says dolefully. “I’ve sold `em. I need Peter to sign these so I can get reimbursed. And they won’t clear my pay either, until I get `em done.”

“Well, I know he told George he was going on leave for some time.”

Ricki’s face falls. “But how long?”

“I’m not sure, darling boy. I know he hasn’t filed yet, so he’ll probably back-date it when he does.” She feels sorry for him, standing there scratching his scalp like a worried child. “Why don’t you call him, then?"

“He’s not answering his phone. You think he went out of town, maybe?” He makes a strangled noise of annoyance. “Damn it, that’s just like him. Just ups and leaves like he’s not answerable to anyone.”

Connie suppresses a chuckle; Ricki’s actually describing himself, not Peter, but he’s so visibly distressed that she doesn’t have the heart to say so. “Here’s what you can do, Ricki. Why don’t you let old Connie spot you a few quid? And then in a couple of days you can run round to Peter’s and see if you can’t get his signature on your claims. What do you think?”

Ricki considers this for a moment. “You’d do that for me?”

Connie is already unzipping her purse. “Anything for my lovely boys.”

 

Peter fades in and out of consciousness over the next few nights. Jim is generous with the drugs, and they keep him in a state of hazy awareness: conscious of both pain and pleasure, but not nearly lucid or steady enough to fully comprehend what is being done to him, much less to fight back.

The first night, he’s stripped naked, tied to a bed and pumped full of something that makes the room swim around him. The LED lights are trained on him and they burn his eyes.

But not for long. The woman blindfolds him, and that’s even worse, not knowing what happens next.

The pain starts out slow, and she’s careful with him, testing his threshold, finding it quite high. So on the second night she gets more aggressive, and her little games become progressively more punishing, her instruments ever more cruel. She alternates these with pure sexual play, his body responding against his will, much to his dismay.

The woman has him at night, but in the daytime, he’s left to Jim’s boys, who are much less subtle in their torments. With them, he’s on more familiar ground: dunking in ice-cold water, heavy blows to the face and stomach, the application of electrical current to his fingers, nipples and genitals. They’re good at it, too, possibly ex-professionals who went into business for themselves. They know just how much pain to inflict and when to stop, how much recovery time he needs and when to start all over again.

But it’s the sessions with her that truly frighten him, because some she knows just how to dig, how far to burrow into him, to get down to where his deepest secrets lie. Maybe that’s something they teach you in Dominatrix School. She takes him apart and puts him together only to break him apart again, expose him, debase him. He weeps and babbles, his mind addled from the constant pain and the drugs and the unwanted pleasure. In a moment of forced release, he cries out in anguish, and she coos at him, stroking his hair with one hand and his cock with the other. And what she says absolutely terrifies him.

 _Oh yes, darling, darling Peter. That’s a lovely big one for the cameras_.

 

Sherlock emerges from the bathroom at the flat running a towel through his damp hair. He checks his mobile phone for any messages, then powers up his laptop to check his email.

As he’s scrolling through his inbox, he gets a phone call from Mycroft.

“I’m busy,” he says.

“Hello, too,” his brother answers, with his usual limitless patience. “I see you’re back at Baker Street.”

“I needed a shower and a change of clothes.”

“I would have sent the car, if you’d asked,” Mycroft says. “The danger is hardly past, you know.”

“This is a peculiar talent to have, brother dear, this spectacular ability of yours for stating the obvious.”

“ _Sherlock_.” Mycroft’s voice is suddenly harsh. “James Moriarty broke into St. Barts a few days ago. He threatened Molly Hooper if she didn’t show him Sebastian Moran’s body. And he has vowed to avenge his death. If you’re thinking that you can let your guard down – that _any of us_ can let our guard down ...”

“Once again, that gift of yours on full display,” Sherlock taunts his brother. “Really, Mycroft. Do you think I’m that stupid? Besides, aren’t you constantly watching me? And George Smiley hasn’t let up, either. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel the presence of Circus agents following me. I am the most watched man in the entire Commonwealth these days. I don’t know if I should be flattered, Mycroft, should I be? Perhaps I ought to begin randomly passing out autographs to strangers on the street.”

Mycroft sighs. There is no point trying to argue with his brother when he’s in this contrary mood.

“I’m just asking you to be careful, brother.”

“Good night, Mycroft.” Sherlock hangs up. He goes back to scrolling through his inbox and makes a little sound of annoyance in his throat at finding five emails with links to a pornographic site.

He deletes all of them without another thought.

 

When she gives him a moment to rest, he asks her to turn the lights off and remove his blindfold for a while. “Please,” he whispers.

She complies, and he feels on his skin the sudden absence of heat from the lights. She takes off the blindfold and sits in a chair beside the bed. He can just about make out her beautiful face in the semi-darkness.

“What’s your name?” he asks, his voice hoarse and cracking.

“Does it matter?”

“You know mine. Seems only fair.”

She thinks about this a moment, then says, “Irene.”

His mouth is very dry. “Irene, I’m thirsty. Can I have some water, please?”

She stands, walks across the large, almost empty room, high heels clacking on the cement floor. She walks back, lifts his head gently to allow him to take a few sips from the glass she’s holding.

“Thank you,” he says, when he’s finished.

“You’re welcome.” Clacks away, clacks back, takes her seat again.

“Why are you doing this to me, Irene?” he asks her softly.

He can see her smile in the half-light. “Aren’t you enjoying it, Peter? Just a little bit?”

“I’m not. And you know it.”

She leans back in the chair, legs crossed. “I could dispute that, judging by the number of times you’ve … responded positively to my attentions.”

“You’re _violating_ me.”

Something about the quietly anguished way that he says it makes her tense in the chair; even with his eyes nearly swollen shut, he can see it.

“I’m a good man, Irene. God knows I’ve made mistakes; you can’t help it in my line of work. But I’m a good man.” His voice breaks on the last three words. “And I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve whatever you and he have got planned for me, with your whips and toys and cameras.”

She uncrosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap. “I have a job to do, Peter. And I’m very good at it.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with – _this_?” He moves his head to indicate his own bruised, battered body, his bound hands and feet. “This is different, isn’t it? I’m an unwilling participant. Isn’t there a provision somewhere in your profession’s code of ethics about consent?”

She’s very still, and he can sense that he’s getting to her.

“It’s only going to get worse, Irene. How long do you think he’ll be satisfied with just this?  Soon it won’t be enough. You know that. Is he paying you enough for what comes next?” He looks at her. “Do you have the stomach for it?”

They hear footsteps coming down the hall, and she tenses even more. The door opens and Jim lopes in, whistling. He comes to a stop just behind her, takes her hand and kisses the back of it. “Irene, dear, could you give us a moment alone, please?”

She stands stiffly, then leaves.

Jim switches one of the LED lights on again, but angles it away from Peter, flooding the rest of the room but leaving both of them in relative darkness. Then he takes the chair Irene left empty.

“You’re trying to influence my employee. That’s incredibly discourteous."

Peter says nothing; it’s pointless and he’s just so very tired, everything hurts so badly.

“Your little show is generating a lot of interest, by the way,” he continues. “On the Internet. So many people, all so eager to see you. They don’t know who you are just yet, we’ve kept the cameras off that lovely face. But the big reveal will be _so_ exciting. Unfortunately, the people whose attention I want to catch seem … preoccupied.” He sounds truly disappointed. “They haven’t even bothered to watch you.” He shrugs. “It’s a shame, really. They’re missing _such_ a bravura performance.”

“Go to hell.”

Jim giggles. “I’ll probably see her there. Your little dead sniper.” He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and draws out a photograph: the one the children gave Peter outside Fawn’s flat. Jim must have found it in his jacket. He waves the photograph at him. “She’s very pretty in this picture. I can see why she was such a huge favourite in Annikov’s little stable of thoroughbreds.”

Peter growls at him, then starts thrashing wildly, trying to break free of his bonds. “Don’t touch that,” he spits out at him. “Don’t you dare touch that.”

Jim laughs, a high-pitched neigh soaked in gleeful malice. “Oh-ho-ho-ho, Peter. So _sensitive_! It’s just a photograph, honey. Don’t worry, I’ll give it back when I'm good and ready.” He stands, puts the photograph back in his pocket. “Well, I’d better be off. I’ll leave you to the boys, shall I?”

 _The boys, yes_. Peter welcomes the thought.

When they come for him, he vows, he will allow himself to sink into the pain: to embrace it, to let it carry him away into oblivion.

 

She’s waiting for him in the hallway, and when he strides past, ignoring her, she follows him closely.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” she hisses at him.

“I wrote you a blank check,” he smiles at her indulgently, as he might with a spoilt child or a demanding mistress. “You do whatever I tell you to do.”

“Your thugs are pushing him to the edge, and I won’t be held responsible. This was supposed to be a simple blackmail operation. But that was never your intention, was it? You don’t just want to humiliate this man. You want to break him. His reputation, his body and then quite possibly his mind.” She puts herself directly in his path, then crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m done with this. I’m not playing any more.”

In one rapid movement, Jim grasps her right arm and twists it hard behind her back, and she gasps from the pain. “You think you can just quit whenever you please? This isn’t a fucking temp job, my dear. You don’t get paid by the hour. You don’t move on to the next job, not until I tell you so. Do you understand?” He twists harder, even as his voice grows more gentle. “Do we understand each other, my dear?”

It hurts so much that her eyes fill with tears. “Yes,” she says, and he lets go abruptly.

When he leaves, she rubs her arm; it’s certain to bruise.

And nobody – _nobody_ \-- bruises her without her permission.

She draws out her mobile phone and quickly sends a text message, then waits for a response.

 _You’re not the_ _only one who can make people do what you want them to do_.

 

Ricki has been knocking on the door of Peter’s flat, but there’s no answer. It’s strange: no response from him on the phone, no response at the flat.

He looks up and down the corridor, then picks the lock.

“Mr. Guillam?” he calls out.

He moves from one room to the other. Peter is nowhere to be found.

In the bedroom, lying discarded on the floor, he sees the pyjamas Peter had been wearing the day he’d come to drag him to Fawn’s flat.

Something is definitely not right.

 

In the camp outside Moscow, just before midnight, Karla receives two messages.  He acts on one immediately, because that’s the easiest – and right now, the most satisfying.

He cannot do anything about the other.

Retribution. He can see it coming so clearly now.

Somehow, he had not expected it to be such a relief.

 

Night fades into day, and day into night again.

His shoulder is dislocated. He struggled so hard this morning when they dunked him in the ice bath, and he couldn’t breathe. They restrained him even harder, and the shoulder popped out of joint.

Every time he moves, he can feel bone grating against bone.

He feels other things, too many to even list in any coherent fashion. 

He just wants all of this to be over.

When it is, he’ll either be dead or ruined. Very likely, both.

 _Peel back the layers. Burn the core_.

James Moriarty certainly knows what he’s doing.

“Peter.”

He doesn’t move.

 _“Peter_.”

“Go away, Fawn. You’re dead, remember? You can’t help me.”

She is standing on the chair beside the bed.

“Can’t you just sit in a chair like normal people do?”

“It will get worse very soon, Peter.

 “Worse than this?” He can’t imagine anything worse than this.

She steps off the chair, then slides into bed beside him. She is much smaller than he is, but she cradles him from behind, and she feels so very real, so warm and alive and _safe_. He sobs because it’s _such_ a comfort, and because he knows it’s either a dream or a drug-induced hallucination, and because he knows she won’t be there when he wakes up.

“Peter, you  need to be strong for what’s coming,” she whispers in his hair.

“Fawn. I can’t. I just can’t anymore.”

“Yes, you can. You have to be.”

“I’m not like you,” he says. “I’m not as strong as you are.”

“No,” she says, taking his hands and crossing them over his chest, wrapping him up in the cocoon of her body. “You’re stronger. I lived through my hell, and you’ll live through yours. But I won’t lie: it _will_ be hell.”

He leans against her. “Don’t go, then. Don’t leave me.”

She kisses the top of his head and rocks him gently in her arms, as a mother would do with her child.

“Never.”

 

She holds him for what seems like days but at the same time it seems like mere seconds.

And then the lights come on again with their furious burning, and Jim’s voice floods the room like a noxious substance.

“Sorry to interrupt your little nap, Peter darling. But look! I’ve brought you a playmate!”

Peter drags himself up to a sitting position.

Jim’s men bring in a man seated on a wheelchair, his head covered with a small burlap bag, his arms and legs bound. The man is wearing a white shirt and a sleeveless, dark blue jumper; both are heavily spattered with what is evidently his own blood. The first thought that crosses Peter’s mind is that it’s Sherlock; but no. He’s taller, and bigger, broader than Sherlock.

“I had to wait till school was out, but it was worth every second,” Jim cackles, and he rips the bag off the man’s head.

At this moment, Peter truly understands what Fawn meant when she warned him that this would be hell.

It’s Richard.

 

 


	18. Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for Peter Guillam begins in earnest. But an unexpected stroke of luck brings Jim Moriarty within Karla's reach at last.

Anton Grigoriev is a mean, pompous, cowardly little man.

Interrogating him turns out to be one of the most frustrating experiences of Smiley’s life. Consider that a spy’s life is made up mostly of endless hours of waiting; consider that the best kind of spy is a man of infinite patience. For Smiley to rank this interrogation among the most vexing of his career, therefore, is saying a great deal. The Russian is all bluff and bluster and hot air. When he’s not being evasive, he is spiteful. When he’s not being spiteful, he is unctuous and ingratiating. When being unctuous and ingratiating does not work, he resorts to evasion all over again.

Smiley struggles to contain himself for something like ten hours. He sits in that cramped, anonymous room hunched over a thick pad of ruled paper and plays the part of faceless bureaucrat, plodding and gnawing through endless, seemingly innocuous questions to get at the truth.  

When the interrogation is over, Smiley slips out of the room like a man deprived of oxygen.

But what a truth it is: so devastating that the chief of the Circus braces himself against a wall for several minutes, afraid that his legs might give.

Someone touches him lightly on the shoulder; it’s Connie.

“Are you all right, dear George?” she asks, her face creased with concern.

Smiley opens his mouth but finds that he can’t get the right words out. So he closes it again, takes a breath and starts over. “Could you get those transcripts typed up straightaway, Con? I’ll be needing them as soon as possible.”

She squeezes his arm. “Do you think you might finally have him, George? After all these years?”

He stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets to hide the fact that they’re actually trembling. “I don’t know yet, Connie,” he says, careful not to show any hint of what he’s feeling. “It’s a bit too early to tell.”

She nods. “Quite right, George darling.” She pats his arm. “I’ll go see about getting those transcripts ready for you by tomorrow afternoon.” She turns and barrels down the corridor, a bundle of energy even at this time of night.

Smiley doesn’t move; he needs the wall right now, he doesn’t trust himself to stand without it.

Then his phone rings.

“Yes?"

“Mr. Smiley?” Ricki’s voice sounds hesitant. “Listen, sir, I’m sorry to bother you this time of night.”

“What’s the matter, Ricki?”

“It’s – well, it’s Mr. Guillam, sir.”

“Well, what about him?”

“I think he’s disappeared.”

 

Richard has hardly spoken a word to Peter since he was brought into this room and left here. He’s hardly even looked at Peter, as though he can’t bear the sight of him. His answers to Peter’s questions have been monosyllabic, _yes_ and _no_ delivered in a flat tone, devoid of colour or expression.

Peter sees that Jim’s thugs have crushed Richard’s fingers: fingers that caressed and pleasured and comforted him countless times over the years they had been together.

“Please say something,” he whispers.

Richard shifts uncomfortably in the wheelchair. “What do you want me to say, Peter?”

“Anything. Get angry. Curse me for getting you into all this.”

Richard shakes his head sadly. “I’m more concerned at how _you_ got into all this. What is going on here, Peter?” His breath hitches. “Who _are_ these people? Do you – do you _owe_ them something?”

It’s like being stabbed in the heart, realising that Richard thinks this is about some kind of debt, financial or otherwise. But Peter can’t really blame him; he had kept so many secrets from the man with whom he had shared his home and his life and his bed. He can forgive Richard for thinking that he barely knows him at all. Peter had never allowed himself the luxury – the folly -- of complete honesty. A long time ago, Control had warned him that that was the sort of thing that got you killed, the sort of thing that got the people you love killed. Young and impressionable, eager to fit into the shuttered, shadowy world of the Circus, Peter had swallowed that warning wholesale, lived and breathed it.

Well, so much for all those precautions.

Peter twists in the bed, his hands still bound; even the slightest movement sends a bolt of pain shooting through his twice-injured shoulder, the earlier bullet wound now horribly compounded by the dislocation. He grits his teeth, struggling to get past the agony.

“No. It’s – it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

Richard starts to laugh, tight and bitter and angry, and it makes him wince in pain from his earlier beating. “Oh, forgive me, Peter. I’d almost forgotten. Candour was never your strong suit, was it? No reason to change now.”

“Richard.” Peter says his name soundlessly. Then he closes his eyes and sinks back onto the pillows. He’s just so very, very tired.

 

Sherlock’ phone vibrates in his pocket as he sits by John’s bedside; he’d set the phone to silent mode so John wouldn’t be awakened by it. He takes it and looks at the screen. It’s George Smiley. Sherlock quietly slides out of his chair, across the room to the door and into the dimly-lit hallway.

“Mr. Smiley?”

“Mr. Holmes. I’m sorry to be calling you so late.”

“It’s early, actually. 2.15am, to be precise.” When Smiley doesn’t respond, he continues. “What is the matter?”

Smiley clears his throat. “Mr. Holmes, we seem to have a situation. With Peter.”

Sherlock tenses immediately. “What kind of situation?”

“He’s missing. Apparently has been for several days now.”

Missing.

 _Oh, stupid. Stupid. Moriarty. Of course_.

 _That’s why he never answered my messages_.

_Or is it?_

It takes him a few seconds to register that Smiley is speaking again. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, have you been getting any strange emails lately? From what is purportedly a pornographic website?”

Sherlock’s blood runs cold.  He thinks of all the emails he’s deleted the last four or five days. “Yes. Why?”

“Mr. Holmes, I’ve already sent Ricki around to pick you up, and he should be there any moment. Would you come and meet me at the Circus? I’m afraid I --” and here Smiley’s voice falters, so slightly that only someone like Sherlock would notice. “I’m afraid I need your help on this.”

“Yes, of course.”

They both hang up and Sherlock puts the phone back in his pocket.

When he turns around, John is standing at the doorway, his figure framed in the mellow light from inside the room.

“John. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Something’s wrong,” John tells Sherlock softly.

Sherlock nods. “It’s Peter. Moriarty …” He looks at John, and he knows immediately that he doesn’t need to say another word. They stare at each other for long moments, until John shuffles toward him, still a bit wobbly on his legs. Sherlock reaches out to support him, and John grips his arms. He soon realises that John is steadying _him_ , rather than the other way round.

“Sherlock.” John: so wise, so calm, so very gentle and patient. “ _Sherlock_. You can’t stay here. All right? He needs you.”

“But John, you –“

“—will be fine without you. You understand? Don’t be a prat about this, Sherlock Holmes. You may be his only chance to make it out of – whatever the hell it is.”

They hear footsteps coming down the hall, and they separate.

It’s Ricki.

“Mr. `olmes,” he says, then glances at John. “Dr. Watson, yeah?”

John nods, then looks back at Sherlock. “You need to go now, Sherlock. I’ll be right here when you get back.” He takes a deep breath. “Just, you know. Make sure you get back.”

Sherlock stands there for a moment, just looking at his friend. Then, without another word, he turns and walks away, Ricki following close behind.

Not too long ago, John would have been walking – no, running – right beside Sherlock, willing to be led anywhere, determined to be useful. Now, all he can do is watch him disappear down the hall.

 

A massive, bald man in a very expensive suit slides into the passenger seat beside Irene. He smothers her in a cloud of costly aftershave, and she has to roll down the window on her side.

“Dmitri, if you bathed more often, you wouldn’t need so much cologne,” she says, gulping in great lungfuls of stale parking garage air.

He merely laughs. “Is good, ya? _Clive Christian No. 1_. Is nearly two thousand euro in the nice crystal bottle, with diamond on the collar. You like?”

“I no like,” she grimaces. “Too heavy. Too strong. Too much.”

This amuses him even more, and he laughs until he’s wheezing. She patiently gives him a few moments to calm down.

“What did our friend say?” she asks, checking the rear-view mirror for the forty-third time since she drove into the garage.

Dmitri has sobered up considerably. “He say you give him trouble again.”

“He owes me a favour.”

The huge Russian purses his lips. “He say what you ask is no good. He say, _why this woman come to me? Why she not go to police?_ ”

“He knows I couldn’t possibly go to the police. “

Dmitri shakes his head. “He say he cannot do it.”

Irene narrows her eyes. “Then you can tell him I say he isn’t a man of his word. See what happens when that gets around.”

Dmitri shrugs. “He ask me, _what she want me to do?_ _This man Moriarty, he is dangerous,_ he say. _The most dangerous of all, everybody know it. How she get mixed up in his business_?” He throws big, pillowy hands with fat sausage fingers up in the air in frustration. “All this, he ask me. I do not know what to say.”

“It was just a job,” she says quietly. “But he changed the … the parameters.”

“ _Parameters_ , what is _parameters_? I do not understand.”

Irene tightens her grip on the steering wheel of the car. “Will he at least talk to me? In person? Surely he can spare me a little of his time, after everything I’ve done for him.” She’s desperate; only one person can order Dmitri and his men to do what she needs them to do, and evidently that person won’t even see her.

Dmitri’s round brown puppy eyes look at her almost sorrowfully. Then, he takes his phone from the pocket of his jacket. "I do this for you, okay? Just once. Because you're nice to me." He dials a number and hands her the phone.

“Here. _You_ tell him about parameters.”

She takes the phone gratefully and gives Dmitri's shoulder a gentle squeeze.

The person at the other end of the line picks up.

“Arkady,” she says.

 

At his office just outside of Moscow, Colonel Kirill Zotov takes a pencil and begins writing things down on a sheet of ruled paper. He speaks in English, answers when she calls him by one of his many field names. There is a bit of back-and-forth as he tries to wring as much information as he can from her.

When the telephone conversation is ended, he slides the paper over to the man on the other side of the table. He waits for the man to read what’s written on it.

When he’s finished, Zotov asks: “Well?”

Karla leans back in his chair. “You’re certain that neither your Mafiya man nor that Adler woman know who you really are?”

Zotov shakes his head. “There’s no such thing as certainty, comrade. There’s only probability. You know this, I learnt it from you. For Vyalitsin, the probability is high that he has no idea. He is useful as a weapon, but about as intelligent as a pile of stones.”

“The woman – she’s a different matter. I’ve worked with her several times before. Very good at what she does, and very, very sharp – sharper than she lets on, sharper than almost anyone I’ve ever worked with in all my years in the field. I would not put it past her to suspect, or even to know. If you ask me, she has known all along. That is very likely why she came to me. But she is very discreet, and she knows her limits.”

Karla sighs. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference now, anyway.” He gives Zotov a weary smile. “Kirill. My friend. You and I have been through much together.”

He doesn’t say the rest of it: that their friendship of more than forty years will soon be tested, that Zotov will have to decide for himself whether to remain at his side or to protect his own interests. That he will understand if Zotov chooses the latter.

Zotov huffs. “Don’t get sentimental, comrade.  There’s a great deal to be done before you or I can get any peace.” He taps the edge of the paper with a thick, leathery forefinger. “And the first thing is to get this rat, Moriarty. Then we deal with the matter of Grigoriev falling into the clutches of MI6.”

Karla stares at the sheet. He thinks of stupid, self-important little Grigoriev, sitting across the table from George Smiley. It would be like a vain, empty-headed coquette plucking a rose for her hair, oblivious to the viper lurking in the bush.

“I’m afraid we may be rather too late for that, Kirill.”

Zotov picks up a thin thread of despair – of resignation – in Karla’s voice. He doesn’t like it; it reminds him of that time in Siberia decades ago, when months in solitary confinement almost broke his master.

Almost.

“The rat first, then,” he says gruffly, ever the pragmatist.

Karla nods, but does not say anything. Zotov knows better than to hurry him, though. He’ll decide when he’s ready.

After some five minutes of reflection, he slides the paper back toward the Colonel.

“Do it.”

 

Ricki leads Sherlock through the labyrinthine layers of the Circus to a small room, where Smiley and Connie Sachs are waiting. From the set of Smiley’s shoulders, Sherlock can tell that Peter’s disappearance is taking a heavy toll on him; he looks exactly the same as always, but somehow deflated.

Still, he rises to meet Sherlock and holds out his hand to him. “Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock takes the offered hand in both of his. “Mr. Smiley.”

Smiley extends his free hand to draw Sherlock’s attention to Connie, who’s sitting in front of a very large computer screen. “This is our head of Soviet research, Connie Sachs."

She gives him a friendly smile. “Mr. Holmes.

“Miss Sachs.”

Smiley turns back to Sherlock. “We’re also waiting for two of our best IT experts. I sent them home a few hours ago for a shower and a rest, but they should be back very soon.” He pauses. “In the meantime, Mr. Holmes, you said you deleted the emails you had received.”

“Yes, I get a lot of nonsense from my public email address. These looked like more of the same.”

“And you never opened them up?”

“No, I was –“ Sherlock thought about the last week or so, helping John through his recovery. “I’m afraid I have been preoccupied.”

“Perhaps we can have a look, Mr. Holmes?” Connie suggests.

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

She moves aside so that Sherlock can type in his email address. He calls up the trash bin, seeks out the emails in question. “ _This hot blonde will ROCK your world_. I presume this is the one?”

Smiley nods. “We’ve had a look at the emails sent to me, and … well, shall we examine yours?”

“Mr. Smiley, I …” Sherlock hesitates a moment, considering Connie’s presence in the room.

Smiley, as always, is sensitive to these unspoken things. He turns to Connie. “Con, would you mind excusing us a moment?”

She stands. “I think I’ll go get myself a coffee, George. Shall I get you boys some as well?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all, dear George.”

She bustles out of the room, and Smiley turns to Sherlock. “Is something the matter?”

“What will I – what did you see in those emails?”

Smiley sinks down into a chair, removes his glasses and rubs his tired eyes with his fingers. “They contain links to a series of video clips.  It wasn’t one of those live streaming sites; these files were uploaded on to a server. Our tech boys say it’s very likely that they were set up to trigger some kind of alert when accessed.”

“Of course,” Sherlock says. “If it’s Moriarty, he would have thought of everything. He would have wanted to know the exact moment when we caught on.”

Smiley sighs. “We tried every precaution, but it seems unlikely that we avoided setting off those alerts.”

Sherlock bites his lip. “And what is in those clips?”

“They show a man being tortured, Mr. Holmes.”

“Tortured? How?”

“Beaten. Electrocuted. Dunked in water. They never show his face but in some places you can clearly see a recent injury on his left shoulder. And then there’s the sound on the footage. It’s a bit muffled but … well, I know it’s Peter.”

When he says those last few words, Smiley looks utterly defeated.  Sherlock can only imagine how he must feel: to work with a team so closely, to know them so well, to bear the responsibility of sending them on risky undertakings with the full knowledge that they might never return. George Smiley has already lost one of his team, and now, faced with the possibility of losing another, he seems adrift.

Sherlock lays a hand gently on his arm. “Mr. Smiley, there’s something I must tell you. Peter and I … we …”

Smiley looks up at him, brows knit together in puzzlement. It’s not long, however, before he reads meaning in the words that Sherlock isn’t able to say.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes. I see.” He puts his glasses back on. “I’m so very sorry. Had I known, I would not have sought your help. You are too close to the problem.”

“No,” Sherlock says firmly. “Don’t spare me out of some misplaced concern over my -- feelings.”

Smiley rises to his feet. “I do not think Peter would want you to see him … in this condition, under these circumstances.”

Sherlock should have expected this: should have known that Smiley would try to protect them both, would have chosen to shoulder this burden alone, even if it killed him, rather than share it with someone with whom Peter might be emotionally involved.

“Unfortunately, Peter has no say in the matter; and I say that without any disrespect for him. Mr. Smiley, you brought me here for a reason. Regardless of what is or isn’t going on between Peter and me, you know that I’m capable of helping you find him. That’s paramount right now, and I don’t think you or I can afford to be swayed by any other considerations when the clock is clearly ticking.”

Connie appears in the doorway with three mugs of coffee. “Shall I come back in a few minutes?” she asks.

Smiley clears his throat. “Yes, Connie, let’s begin.” He turns to Sherlock. “Mr. Holmes, I know this is a hard ask. But I thought perhaps, from a thorough study of the footage, that you could try and identify the location where all this is taking place.”

 

Richard is no longer in the room when Peter regains consciousness. But Jim is sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Did you enjoy your little reunion?” he asks maliciously when Peter looks around the room. “Good old Will Shakespeare. _Journeys end in lovers meeting,_ and all that.”

“Where is he? What have you done with him?”

Jim holds up a finger. As if on cue, Peter hears the sound of a man howling in pain. “ _Doing_ , Peter. What am I _doing_. _”_

“You sick bastard,” Peter says, straining against his bonds even as the bones in his dislocated shoulder grind against each other.

“Now, now, sweetheart, you’re only hurting yourself.” He stands, moves closer to Peter, then tilts his chin up to look down into his face. “And we’ve still got a long way to go.” He glances at one of the cameras, hidden from Peter’s sight. “After all, it seems that we’ve captured the attention of our target audience at last.”

There’s a noise at the door, and Irene is leaning on the doorframe, smiling at Jim.

“Is he in a good mood?” she asks, drifting toward the bed in a black silk _negligee.  
_

__Jim smiles back. “He’s a bit cross tonight. But I’m sure you can change that.”  He brushes against her on his way out. “Entertain me.”_ _

__“I’ll certainly do my best,” she says._ _

__She waits until he’s out of the room, and then she scrambles onto the bed, positioning herself to shield him from the view of the main camera._ _

__“We have two minutes at most before he gets to the viewing room,” she whispers urgently. “I can’t get you out of here yet, but I can try and get you in slightly better shape to make it out when the time comes._ _ _Peter_ _!_ _Focus_ _!_ __” she hisses, slapping him in the face to rouse him fully._ _

__“What do you want from me?” he asks despairingly._ _

__“I want you to put this in your mouth and bite it,” she says, taking a clear silicone dildo from within the folds of her negligee and laying it across his lips. “Do as I say. Open your mouth and bite it.”_ _

__He does as he’s told, too wrung out to resist. A thin film of sweat is forming on her brow; she’s gentle as she lays him back on the pillows. “This is going to hurt so very much, Peter, but I need to do this. Do you understand me?”_ _

__He tries to say something but the dildo is wedged firmly in between his teeth. “Bite it hard_ _now_ _, Peter,” she commands. She grasps his injured left arm and bends the elbow at a 90-degree angle, then rotates the lower arm inward toward his chest. Slowly, she rotates the arm and the shoulder outward, keeping his upper arm motionless. The pain is making his heart palpitate, and he feels as though he is going to pass out. She repeats the rotations as fast as she can without hurting him more than is necessary; the effort, along with the fear that Jim will reach the viewing room before she can finish, has sweat beading on her brow._ _

__Suddenly there’s a sickening grate and crunch of bone as she manages to relocate the dislocated shoulder, popping and locking it back into place. He screams soundlessly, biting hard on the dildo, and she speaks to muffle any sound that he might yet make._ _

__“There, there, darling, doesn’t that feel_ _ ___gooood_ ____?” she says, loud enough for the cameras to pick up. She glances at her wristwatch, then back at him. Tears are streaming from his eyes. She lowers her voice again so that only he can hear her. “Are you all right?_ _Peter,_ _ _are you all right_ ____?”_ _

__He nods, spits the dildo out, then collapses on the pillows, drenched in sweat. The wound on the injured shoulder is badly inflamed, and Irene studies it with grave concern. She straddles his hips, then bends over him to whisper in his ear. “I’m sorry, but you and I have to play a little for the benefit of the cameras until help arrives. Do you understand? The dislocation is the least of your problems. I think your wound is severely infected.” She rests a cool hand on his hot forehead. “That’s why you’re running a temperature. I need to get you out of here soon.”_ _

__He looks up at her, her dark hair falling like a curtain on either side of his face. “There’s someone else in this house – his name is Richard.”_ _

__She shakes her head. “It’ll be hard enough trying to get_ _you_ _out. I didn’t plan for anyone else.”_ _

__“Please,” he whispers._ _

__She bites her lip. “We’ll see.” She straightens up and speaks louder, the quality of her voice changing. “Now, darling. Smile for the cameras.”_ _

__

__Smiley, Sherlock and Connie, together with Osgood and Langham, the two IT specialists from the Circus, have spent the better part of the day trawling through the cumulative seven minutes and 22 seconds of video clips they’ve been sent. Osgood’s particular field of specialisation is audio analysis; he’s managed to isolate the layers of sound in the footage so that he and Sherlock can match them to sound samples from hundreds of thousands of known locations._ _

__Connie pulls up from the Circus database a heavily detailed topographical map of the area they’re considering, and Sherlock pounces on it like a panther on its prey, scrolling carefully up and down the grid._ _

__“It makes sense,” he says, almost to himself, as Connie and Smiley look on. “Given the angle of the light at the various times of the day that the clips were filmed, the view of the line of rooftops through the window, and the combination of background sounds, it could only be that swathe of the North Circular, between Edmonton and New Southgate.”_ _

__He turns to Smiley. “Will you make the call?”_ _

__

__Lestrade receives word from Mycroft Holmes at around 9.15pm. As soon as he hangs up, he leaps out of his chair, strides out of his office and pops his head through Sally Donovan’s open door._ _

__“We need to get three teams down to North Circular. We’re looking for an abandoned house where Moriarty is holding an MI6 agent.”_ _

__Sally looks up. “Which house?”_ _

__“We don’t know.”_ _

__She frowns. “Wait, that’s all we have to go on with? You know how many abandoned houses there are along that stretch?”_ _

__“Around three hundred, yes,” Lestrade says, folding his arms across his chest. “That means the more time we talk about it, the less time we’ll have to search, right?”_ _

__Most times, Lestrade is fairly easy-going and affable. But when he uses this tone of voice, there’s no question who’s in charge._ _

__“I’ll get on it right away, sir.”_ _

__

__Sherlock’s phone rings, just as he is about to leave the Circus in a car with Smiley and Ricki to head to North Circular. “Sherlock Holmes.” There’s no immediate answer. “Hello?”_ _

__“Do you know what the problem between us is?”_ _

__The look of cold fury that spreads across Sherlock’s face tells Smiley that it’s James Moriarty on the line. “I’m sure you’re just itching to tell me.”_ _

__“The problem is that you’re always underestimating my capacity for boredom.”_ _

__“Hmmm. Yes. Perhaps we should just find you a massive ball of string. That should keep you occupied.”_ _

__Jim giggles. “You’re always so cagey. Don’t you_ _like_ _me, my dear Sherlock? Haven’t I been_ _ ___fun_ ____?”_ _

__“All this effort just to get my attention. You could have just sent flowers, you know. Or chocolate. I’m told that’s the done thing.”  
_ _

__“Is that how John Watson did it?” Jim drops his voice to an intimate whisper.  “Is that how Peter Guillam did it?”  
_ _

__“Spare me your theatrics and pray that I don’t find you.”_ _

__“But I_ _want_ _you to find me, honey. It’ll be just like Rapunzel. I’ll let down my hair so you can climb up the tower.” Jim’s voice changes again; to Sherlock, he suddenly sounds completely exhausted. “I think it’s time for the closing credits, don’t you?”_ _

__“Closing -- what do you mean? What are you saying?”_ _

__“Just come and find me, Sherlock. I promise to make it worth your while.”_ _

__After Jim hangs up, Sherlock looks at Smiley. They don’t say anything; they don’t need to._ _

__

__Dmitri sits in the back of the car parked some distance away from a derelict structure sitting among the many derelict structures along the North Circular. He watches the rear-view mirror as the rest of his boys pull up behind him in two cars. “They’re late,” he grumbles to the two men in front._ _

__“Bogdan’s wife is sick, boss,” Osip says, as he loads a pistol._ _

__“And by sick, he means drunk,” Pavel grumbles in the driver’s seat. “Again.”_ _

__Dmitri sighs. “Well, at least they’re here. They know what to do?”_ _

__“You mean, barge in and beat the living daylights out of anyone who resists?” Osip flashes him a wide, gap-toothed grin. “I think they can handle it.”_ _

__

__When Jim comes into the room again, he has his men bring Richard in behind him. He’s still strapped to the wheelchair, barely conscious. They wheel him right to the edge of the bed where Peter is lying._ _

__One nod from him, and they untie the restraints around Peter’s wrists and ankles. Then, they leave the room._ _

__Irene looks at Jim questioningly._ _

__He smiles to acknowledge it. “Stick around, my dear. You might find this amusing.” He ambles over to the bed and slaps Peter awake. “Peter? Wake up, sleeping beauty. Look, your prince has come. Well, sort of.” When Peter moans, through the pain and the haze of drugs, Jim just yells louder, slaps him harder. “Come on, sweetheart, no time to waste.”  
_ _

__Irene stiffens. “What are you doing?”_ _

__“I’m_ _ ___bored_ ____,” he screams at her, and she’s jolted, thoroughly shaken, by the unhinged look on his face when he does. “It’s been days and_ _days_ _of the same thing, over and over again. Nobody ever wants to come out and play, until it’s too_ _late_ _.”_ _

__He grabs a handful of Peter’s hair and twists his head around so Irene can look into his face. “Do you know what these people_ _did_ _to me? They took away the one person who could stand me. Not understand. Just –_ _ ___stand_ ____.”_ _

__With a furious energy, he drags Peter up to a sitting position. “Are you good, Peter? Are you with me, now? Blink once for_ _ ___yes_ ____. Or, you know -- just say_ _ ___yes_ ____.”_ _

__Peter glares up at him. “Fuck you.”_ _

__“Is that a threat or an offer?” he taunts him.  
_ _

__“All right, stop it,” Irene says, stepping forward, but he’s incredibly fast, whipping a gun out of his jacket and striking her hard across the cheek with the grip. She staggers backward and falls, hits the back of her head on the floor. To Peter’s alarm, she doesn’t get up._ _

__Jim crosses over to where she is lying and looms over her.  “Don’t ever, ever contradict me, my pretty, or you’ll regret it.”_ _

__She doesn’t answer._ _

__Then he turns back to Peter, now face to face with Richard, battered and broken in the wheelchair. Jim clambers up on the bed, crouches right behind the spy, presses his mouth to his ear._ _

__“Look at you two. I had really hoped that seeing you together would be at least mildly entertaining, but it was_ _ ___such_ ____a disappointment! I should just kill the both of you right now.”_ _

__“Then why_ _don’t_ _you?” Peter asks defiantly._ _

__Jim laughs, high-pitched, almost hysterical. “Because I’m determined to wring every last possible bit of fun out of it.”_ _

__He reaches over Peter’s right shoulder and hands him the gun. When Peter hesitates, he waves it at him. “Go on, take it. It’s free. Go_ _ ___on_ ____.”_ _

__Peter turns around and looks at Jim: at those wide, dark eyes and the empty, howling blackness inside them. Then, he takes the gun with a shaking hand._ _ ___Is this a trick? Is it loaded?_

__“Good boy.  Now ask me what that’s for.”_ _

__Peter blinks, tries to focus, all the while steadying the gun in his grip, feeling the weight of it. It’s definitely loaded. “What is … why did you … give this to me?”_ _

__Jim reaches into his jacket, and quickly draws out a second gun. He shoves the muzzle right up against Peter’s temple._ _

__“I want to watch you put him out of his misery.”_ _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wonderful site called Derelict London provided the information on the general area where Peter Guillam is being held. I don't know if the information on the site is completely up to date as regards that particular area, but certainly the photographs of all the abandoned structures there are sad and haunting.  
> The chapter title, of course, is borrowed from Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.


	19. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A good man dies, a dead man runs, and the hunter becomes the hunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to warn you that this chapter is quite violent and quite graphic in its violence. Please proceed with caution.

Ricki parks near a stand of trees on the quiet, deserted street. Shuttered, locked, boarded-up houses loom on either side, casting long shadows on the pavement. There’s the low rumble of distant traffic from the main road, but it simply underscores the eerie silence here.

Nobody in the car speaks for the next five minutes, and this makes Ricki uncomfortable.  “You gentlemen sure this is the place?”

Smiley gives him a barely perceptible nod in response, while Sherlock thrusts his hand into his coat pocket for his mobile phone. He punches out a number impatiently.

“Where are you?”

He waits for the person at the other end of the line to answer, then says, “Well, you’re late. Come at once, we’re already here.”

He rings off, then pockets the phone again and spends the next three minutes drumming his long fingers on the leather armrest at his side.

A few more minutes, then a car swings around from a corner on the other end of the street, its headlights momentarily blinding them. “It’s him,” Sherlock says, and he’s barely finished with the second word when he’s leaping out of the car and bounding down the street.

Smiley turns to Ricki. “We may need to get in the Detective Inspector’s car to discuss the situation, so follow us, all right?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good lad.” He gets out and follows Sherlock, just as Lestrade is hopping out of his car and running down the street to meet them both.

“I’ve got my men checking abandoned houses all along Edmonton and New Southgate,” he tells Sherlock, a little out of breath. “No luck so far.”

Sherlock grits his teeth. “Moriarty. When he spoke with me, he said it was time for the closing credits. _Time for the closing credits_. He’s got something up his sleeve, and we’re running out of time.”

Mycroft’s Jaguar pulls up behind Lestrade; the DI glances at it, then turns back to Sherlock as he slides his phone out of his coat pocket. “I could try and get some more people on this, but we’re stretched thin as it is. Even with help from MI6,” he says, nodding to Smiley in acknowledgment.

The tip of Mycroft’s umbrella taps on the concrete as he approaches. “That won’t be necessary, Detective Inspector. As soon as Sherlock told me the general area we were looking at, I had my people monitor all unusual movements along that stretch of the North Circular.” Mycroft turns to Smiley and Sherlock. “Rather unusual to see four expensive cars descend on the same street in the vicinity of the same derelict structure at roughly the same time of night.”

“We’ve no time for your riddles, Mycroft,” Sherlock snaps at his brother. “Just tell us where the house is.”

“It isn’t _just_ a house, brother.”

Mycroft points the tip of his umbrella in the direction of what looks like a spire, rising above the rooftops on their side of the street.

“It’s a house of _God_.”

 

Peter shakes his head. “No.”

“ _No_?”

Peter has seen his agents hanged in Morocco, has survived gunfights in Minsk and East Berlin, Hanoi and Hong Kong, has been captured by mercenaries in Vientiane, has been wounded and beaten up and injured in more operations than he can count. He bears all the scars on his body, in his mind and spirit.

This time is different. This time, he knows he’s too weak to put up a real fight. If he tried to turn the gun on Jim, he’d be dead before he could take proper aim.

And if he gets out of this alive? He’s dead anyway. There’s nothing to go back to, nothing left to salvage; Jim has made certain of that, with his cameras and his twisted imagination and his gleeful, boundless malice.

This is it, then.

Peter lets the gun fall from his hand. “You heard me,” he whispers.

Jim spins away from him furiously, waving the other gun in the air. “ _No, no, no_. Why does everyone say _no_ to me? Why can’t people humour me, just once? Is that so hard? Is that so much to ask? Why does it always, always have to be _no_?”

“Because you’re fucking insane,” Peter says calmly.

The words bring Jim to a complete standstill. A heavy silence falls over the room and its occupants, and Peter feels as though time is dilating. The pain in his inflamed shoulder slows to a dull throb, and all he can hear is breathing – Richard’s laboured and erratic, Jim’s slow and deep, his own shallow and quick.

“I’m not insane,” Jim says after a while, his voice unnaturally serene. “Merely misunderstood.”

Then he walks up to Richard and coolly shoots him in the back of the head.

 

It’s the gunshot that finally rouses Irene.  She lifts her head, shakes it vigorously to clear the cobwebs. When she opens her eyes, Peter is slumped over Richard’s body in the wheelchair, shouting words that she can’t fully process yet, given the condition that she’s in. Peter can’t see that Jim has moved behind him and is holding the gun to his head.

Blind instinct pushes her to get up off the floor, even in her dazed state. She casts around for something, anything to hit Jim with, and the first thing she sees is one of the heavy LED lights.  She grabs it, stand and all, and the heat burns the palms of her hands, but she doesn’t pause for a second. She slams it down on his head with all the force she can muster. The gun flies out of his hand, falls to the floor and slides away. The glass on the light cracks and breaks. Sparks fly, and the air in the room is filled with the smell of singed hair.

Irene flings the light away, sending it crashing against a wall, and stares at the burns on her hands. They’ll bubble and blister soon, but it doesn’t matter.

Then she looks down at Jim, now lying unconscious on the floor. She kicks his head hard for good measure.

“Nobody hits me unless I ask them to.” There’s a lifetime of hate simmering quietly beneath the surface of those eight words: for all the men who have ever used her, ever laid a hand on her when she was completely defenseless, ever discarded her after she had outlived her usefulness or novelty.

Peter doesn’t hear the words, or the loathing bubbling underneath them. He’s in shock, covered in Richard’s blood and bits of his bone and brain matter. Irene rushes to him, pulls him away from the body.

“Peter. _Peter_ _!_ We have to get out of here.” She picks up the gun closest to them and makes Peter sit on the bed to steady him.

Suddenly, there’s a commotion outside, followed by a loud explosion and blasts of gunfire.

“Peter,” she says urgently, glancing down at Jim to make sure he’s still out cold. “We’ve got to go.” She’s doing a dozen things nearly all at once, stripping the case off a pillow to wipe Peter’s face and body down, ripping the sheet off the bed to wrap around him, figuring out which of the exits will be the safest to take in both their compromised conditions. She drags him off the bed. “Peter! It’s time to go.”

He shuffles wordlessly along with her, still in shock. Then he stops and turns back.

“We don’t have any time,” she insists, as another explosion rocks the building, very nearly knocking them both off their feet.

“He took something of mine,” Peter rasps out, already shuffling back toward where Jim lies. “I’m not leaving without it.”

He sticks his hand into the pockets of Jim's jacket and trousers until he finds what he’s looking for. From where Irene is standing, it looks like a photograph. He touches it only on one corner, careful not to smear it with the blood growing sticky on his fingers. He tucks it carefully into the folds of the sheet.

He shuffles back toward her, as the shouting in the rooms above them grows louder.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s go.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Lestrade yells as the first explosion rings out, followed soon after by a burst of gunfire. A cloud of smoke appears over the rooftops as they drive toward the location.

“ _Closing credits_ ,” Sherlock bites out fiercely, turning to Smiley. “It’s a trap. _That’s_ what he meant all along. It’s a goddamned trap, and he wanted us to walk right into it.”

Lestrade wastes no time getting on the radio to his men. “The building is wired with explosives,” he warns them. “Do not, I repeat, do **_not_** attempt to enter. Stay outside the perimeter. I’m calling in bomb disposal.”

Sherlock is seething. “He _wanted_ us to walk in there. He set it up so we would all be killed. But something’s happened – something’s obviously gone wrong with his plan.”

Mycroft nods. “The people in those expensive cars are clearly new players.”

As though on cue, he gets a message alert on his mobile phone. He checks the message, studies the contents, then hands the phone over to Sherlock and Smiley.

Sherlock scrolls through the photographs on the screen, with Smiley looking over his shoulder.

“Mafiya,” Smiley says. “Most of them defectors from the Soviet Union, or deserters from the Soviet Army.” He taps the screen with a forefinger. “This one. Dmitri Vyalitsin. He runs an arms smuggling operation, with a high-class prostitution business on the side. “

“What would they have to do with Moriarty?” Lestrade asks. “Why are they here?”

“Clearly, our dear Jim has made some enemies,” Sherlock says.

Lestrade pulls up outside the perimeter around the abandoned, two-story structure. Half a dozen police cars are already parked along the boundary. Donovan runs up to his car as they all pile out of it. “We’ve had three explosions already, all of them in the back of the place, and there’s a gunfight going on in there. We haven’t seen anyone enter or leave.”

Mycroft clears his throat and steps forward. “You might wish to detain the two gentlemen in the BMW in the adjacent street. They clearly have no business being in this area at this time of night, which of course means that they clearly are involved in whatever is happening in there.”

Donovan looks to Lestrade for confirmation, and he merely nods. She nods back, and she’s about to go off to do as she’s been instructed, when a fourth explosion goes off. This one knocks nearly a quarter of the roof off the old church, sending debris flying everywhere.  They all duck and turn away to avoid getting hit in the face by the fragments of the roof that have been blown off.

“Peter is in there,” Smiley says again, as if to remind everyone of what the key objective is.

“I know, sir,” Lestrade says. “We’re doing our best.” He looks over the top of Smiley’s head as he hears the low rumble of approaching vehicles. “Bomb disposal’s here.”

 

She takes his hand as he falters, weakened by his injuries. “We can’t stop, I’m sorry.” She hears footsteps behind them and whirls around to look. It’s one of Jim’s men, and he’s taking aim at them. Without a second thought, she raises the gun and fires, dropping the man at once. The hall is beginning to fill with smoke – the explosions must have started a fire on the upper levels.

She grasps Peter by the elbow and pulls him along. “We’re leaving through the underground garage.”

“What _is_ this place?” Peter asks.

“Old church. This is the basement level, where the church offices used to be. I’d give you a guided tour, but as you can imagine, I’m not very religious.”

 _You are the rock, Peter. And upon this rock, I will build my church of destruction_.

“Irene,” Peter says. “Who is up there? Who is trying to get into this place?”

“Friends of mine,” she answers breathlessly. “And I’m afraid I led them straight into a trap that wasn’t meant for them.”

More footsteps now, and they’re moving as fast as they can. A shot is fired and Irene turns and fires back. The smoke is getting thicker, heavier. They keep running.

Irene suddenly feels a burst of pain in her right side. She crumples and falls to the floor.

“Irene,” Peter gasps, dragging her off to a corner where they won’t be immediately visible. He pats her torso until his hand touches something damp.

She hands him the gun. “Take this,” she says, her breath coming now in shallow gulps. “When you get to the end of the hall, take the door to your left. That leads to the garage. There’s an exit way in the back.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Peter says firmly. A bullet glances off the wall very near to where they are.

“You have to.” She’s wheezing now, and she knows that blood is filling one of her lungs, just as she can feel it spreading on the floor beneath her. “You have to, Peter. I didn’t risk my life … and the lives of others … just to see you die in this place all the same.”

Peter looks up; through the thickening smoke, he sees three shadows on the wall opposite them. All his years of training kick in and he fires, quick and sure and steady despite his multiple injuries. One of the shadows falls, and the other two fall back.

Irene gives him a weak smile. “Nice work. But you’ve only got one round left in there. Not enough to hold all of them back.” She reaches up to touch his face gently. “Don’t waste it.” She coughs, and blood bubbles up from her lips. “You’ve got to go now, Peter. It’s unlikely that he wired that exit because he wouldn’t have been able to make it out otherwise. But I can’t be sure. So you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

Peter takes her hand and presses his lips to the palm, red and peeling from the heat of the LED light. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

“Don’t be,” she says, smiling at him confidently, fearlessly. “Just go.”

He lays her down gently and rises to his feet.

“Just keep going,” she whispers, her beautiful blue eyes bright with encouragement and tears. “Don’t look back.”

 

Pavel tries to maneuver the car out of the space and onto the street to make their getaway, but the police cars descend upon them so fast, from both sides. They’re trapped.

He turns to Dmitri in panic, but as always, his boss seems barely perturbed.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, without any real anger or animosity, as he watches Donovan and other police officers surround their vehicle, yelling at them to come out with their hands up.

“What do we do, boss?”

Dmitri sighs, but it’s a bored kind of sigh, the kind that comes from a man who’s seen far worse than anything a London jail can throw at him. He dials a number on his mobile phone and waits.

“Osip, you still alive after those explosions?” He glances at Pavel. “Good. You know what to do?” Another pause. “All right. Just remember: Arkady wants him alive.”

“And Osip – you might not hear from me for a while. I’ll be in jail for a couple of days. No, it’s no big deal.”

When the call ends, Dmitri leans back on the soft leather seat as though he hasn’t a care in the world. “I can tell you this, Pavel. The food in this city’s prisons is very, very bad.”

 

The exit is wired.

Of course it would be. Jim would have wanted them to come, Sherlock and Smiley and anyone else who dared. Would have wanted them to fall into the trap.  

Except someone else got there ahead of them.

 _I didn’t risk my life … and the lives of others … just to see you die in this place all the same_.

Jim wired every exit because he wasn’t planning to get out. He planned to take everyone with him. Sherlock. Smiley. Mycroft Holmes. Peter himself.

_You are the rock, and upon this rock, I will build my church of destruction._

Peter looks around, his eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. Someone is pounding on the door to the garage, which he has locked and barred with a mop handle. He knows that won’t hold them long, however, and his only options are to hide until they find him, or find another way out.

He moves slowly until his eyes catch a glimmer of light from across the room. It’s a row of small transom windows. He crosses over with difficulty, limping along until he reaches the opposite wall. The windows are set high up, and they’re very small; he’s not sure if he can even squeeze through one. The pounding on the door is getting louder, and it’s clear that they’re using something heavy to try and break it down. He is dripping with sweat, feverish from the infection in his shoulder.

He looks around, sees an old wooden desk, and pushes it up against the wall with tremendous effort. He clambers on top of it, almost sliding off at one point. He tries to wrench open one of the windows, but only succeeds after several exhausting tries, because the hinges have rusted together. His initial fears are quickly confirmed: the opening is far too small, and there’s no way that he can squeeze through.

That is, unless …

Unless he breaks the wooden frame dividing it from the next window.

A shaft of light slices through the darkness of the room. Jim’s men have managed to open the door a crack, and smoke begins to leak through the gap.

_Think, Peter._

One bullet left in the gun. _Don’t waste it_ , Irene had said.

He takes careful aim, turns his face away and fires at the wooden frame. The bullet fractures the wood and he uses the gun to pound away at it, breaking the glass in the process. He needs as wide an opening as possible.

The shaft of light widens, the smoke billows in as the men push the door open even more. The mop won’t hold much longer. Despite the glass shards that still surround the opening in the wall, Peter hoists himself up and through it desperately, hampered not only by his injured shoulder but also by the fact that he refuses to let go of the photograph he’s clutching within the folds of the sheet. He howls in pain as the shards tear the cloth, raking right through to the flesh on his arms, belly and thighs, but he wriggles through the opening just as the men break through the door.  

Peter crawls on his belly for a few yards, then hears gunfire in the garage. He rises to his feet and breaks into a run, wounded everywhere, the white sheet shredded, streaked with his and Richard’s blood.

He doesn’t know where to go, but keeps going anyway. He hears voices, someone shouting – shouting at _him_ , and more gunfire from within the building, and yet another explosion, so he turns and runs in the opposite direction. But they’re running after him now, and he trips on the sheet and falls hard on his bad shoulder, and he screams in agony. Within seconds they’re upon him, hands and feet and faces in the darkness, so he struggles, lashes out with the little energy he has left.

And then he hears it: that voice, so familiar, so godawfully _welcome_.

“Peter.” Smiley takes both his hands firmly and presses them to his chest, over his heart. “You’re safe, dear boy. It’s me. It’s old George Smiley. I’m right here.”

He looks up at the face, half in disbelief. “George,” he says, his voice breaking. “Is that really you?”

Smiley lifts him up and cradles him close, like a father whose child has fallen hard off a bicycle. “It’s all right, Peter, my boy,” he says, rocking Peter gently, his hand at the back of his neck, just under the base of his skull. “I’ve got you now.”

It’s only when he hears those words that Peter allows himself to give in to the overwhelming surge of utter relief that he feels. He buries his face in Smiley’s worn, crumpled coat and sobs.

 

The paramedics tend to the most obvious injuries first. When they’re done, his body is a patchwork of bandages and dressings.

“Will be you be all right by yourself for a while?” Smiley asks him. “I need to speak with Mycroft Holmes for a moment.”

“I’ll be fine, George.”  

Smiley is about to walk away when Peter touches his arm and stops him. “George – I’d almost forgotten. If you go in there, you’ll find two people. One is a man in a wheelchair. He was … his name was Richard. I knew him.”

Smiley doesn’t have to hear any more; he already knows what Peter means, without his having to say it. He nods, and Peter takes it as a signal to proceed.

“And there’s a woman. She helped me to get out of there. Her name is Irene. Irene Adler. They shot her, and I don’t know if she’s still alive.”

Smiley pats a bandaged arm. “We’ll find them, Peter. I’ll just be away for a few minutes, and then I think we should get you straight to hospital.” He turns and walks over to where Mycroft Holmes is standing. Firefighters, police and emergency medical personnel are swarming around the old church. Nearly half of the structure has collapsed, and a fire is raging through what’s left of it.

“Are you able to walk, sir, or shall we just get you on the gurney?” one of the paramedics asks him.

“I can walk, thank you.”

“All right, sir. I’ll be right back to assist you.”

Sherlock has been standing on the sidelines all this time, in order to allow the paramedics to attend to Peter. Now he moves toward him.

Peter looks up at him, and then quickly looks away. “You’re here.”

“I had to come.”

Peter is shivering in the pre-dawn cold, wrapped up in the remains of the sheet and one of the ambulance’s thin, hideous orange blankets. Sherlock removes his coat and drapes it over his shoulders.

“How did you find me?” Peter asks, without looking at him.

Sherlock hesitates a moment.

Peter turns to him. “I know it was you who found me. I want to know how.”

Sherlock won’t lie. “We studied footage that he sent.”

Peter blinks. “ _We_.”

“Mr. Smiley. Connie Sachs. Osgood and Langham from IT.” Sherlock frowns, trying to read him. “We _had_ to.”

The paramedic comes back.

“Mr. Guillam? We’re ready for you.” The man helps Peter up and guides him gently toward the waiting ambulance

Peter stops midway, shrugs off the coat and thrusts it at Sherlock. Then he begins shuffling again toward the ambulance.

“Peter,” Sherlock objects, following close behind. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was the only lead we had.”

Peter says nothing. The paramedics help him up into the ambulance.

“Peter! For God’s sake, are you going to hold this against me, too?”

Peter eases back onto the seat. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at Sherlock; he simply closes his eyes, clutches the photograph tightly in his hand. The paramedics close the ambulance doors.

The ambulance drives away and Sherlock feels a hand on his shoulder.

“He has been through a great deal, Mr. Holmes,” Smiley says softly. “Far more than you and I can imagine.”

“But why is he blaming me? I was only trying to help him – I helped to find him, for God’s sake.”

“It is possible that ... he is ashamed. Of what he thinks we might have seen on that footage.”

“And perhaps he has good reason to be apprehensive,” Mycroft interjects. They turn to him. “We’ve found the woman. The paramedics will be bringing her up soon. Irene Adler.” He hands them his mobile phone again. They look at the images on the screen. “A professional dominatrix.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “He hired her. To humiliate him. And to spite _me_.”

“Well, we don’t know for certain yet that that is, indeed, what happened, although it seems quite likely. We’d have to question her, and that may take a while. She was shot in the melee.”

“And Moriarty?” Smiley asks.

“No sign of him, I’m afraid,” Lestrade says as he walks up to them. “We’ve got six bodies down there, and none of them are him.”

Sherlock shakes his head and turns away in sheer frustration. “We’ve lost him again. Why the _hell_ do we keep losing him?”

Mycroft puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Patience, brother mine. I have a feeling that we may have an unseen and unexpected ally.”

“What do you mean?” Sherlock demands, and then the scowl disappears as he reaches the same conclusion. “Yes. Yes, of course. Someone sent those Russians. The question is, who?”

Smiley has been studying the pictures on Mycroft’s phone. “I’ll have Connie check on this woman. Somehow this … rings a bell.”

Sherlock turns back to his brother. “I want to question her when she is ready.”

Lestrade tilts his head in the direction of a gurney being wheeled from the building toward the ambulance. “That’ll be her. But she's badly -- ”

Before he can finish, before Mycroft can stop him, Sherlock is running toward the gurney. He stops the paramedics and stares down at the woman. She is beautiful, but pale and barely conscious. Her eyelids flutter open and she tries to focus on him.

“Irene Adler,” he says.

“Is he all right?” she whispers, weak from blood loss. She reaches up to clutch the lapel of his coat. “Peter Guillam. Is he safe?”

He looks down at her hand. His face softens and he gently takes the hand in his own. “He is safe. He’s been rushed to hospital.”

She nods, smiles and then drifts off into unconsciousness. Sherlock steps back and lets the paramedics take her away.

 

When John opens his eyes, Sherlock is standing by the window, peering through the curtain at the rosy dawn light that is just beginning to tint the horizon.

“Sherlock,” he says, sitting up in bed. “How’d it go?”

Sherlock looks at him. There are hollows under his eyes, his skin pale as parchment, taut over the fine bones of his face. He looks absolutely shattered.

“Oh, God, no, Sherlock,” John says, fearing the worst. “Not Peter.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “No, John. Peter is … all right. We found him in time.”

The frown that creased John’s forehead just seconds before disappears. “Well, good. That’s good then.” But Sherlock doesn’t say anything in response, so he asks uncertainly: “That **_is_** good – isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Sherlock says softly, turning his attention back to the window. “How could it not be? He’s alive. He’s been badly injured, but he’s strong – he’ll be back on his feet in no time.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Sherlock smiles: that small, reassuring but totally false smile that John knows only too well, and wishes he didn't have to see, ever again.

“Nothing, John. I’m just tired. Everything is fine.”

 

Peter is wrapped up in a blissful, drugged sleep; it insulates him from the pain in his own body, carries him away to a place where he can feel nothing.

At least, until the nightmares begin.

His body jerks involuntarily when he sees Richard, a gaping hole where most of his forehead used to be. He’s smiling sadly at Peter from the wheelchair, his hands and feet still bound with tape.

“You should have been honest with me, Peter.”

Peter shakes his head. “I couldn’t. It was too big a risk to take.”

“Was it all a lie, then? All the time we spent together. Every time you were called away on some business trip. Every time you came back with your eyes hollow and your knuckles bruised. You think I didn’t notice? I was just waiting for you to come clean with me. To trust me.”

“I trusted you, Richard. It was … everyone else that I couldn’t trust. Outside of us, of you and me. Telling you the truth would have meant putting your life at risk.”

Richard laughs, and his once-beloved face twists into a sneer, blood dripping down the inner corner of one eye like grotesque tears. “Well, you’ve done a fantastic job of protecting me, haven’t you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“ _Not good enough_!” Richard screams at him, and flecks of spittle fall on Peter’s face. And he can see that his face is changing, becoming something strange and inhuman and unknown. “Sorry is not enough, Peter Guillam, can’t you see? You brought this on yourself, and you brought this on me, you beautiful, lying bastard. I was barely gone a year and you were playing with that pretty little shit of a detective.”

Peter’s heart is pounding. _No, no, this can’t be right,_ he says in his mind _. This isn't like you. You would never have spoken to me like that._

Richard giggles at him, those soft brown eyes now gleaming black marble. “Someone should have spoken to you like that a long time ago. Taught you a lesson and made it stick.”

“ _Moriarty_.”

“Did you miss me, my pretty?” The eyes are cold and dead in Richard’s shattered face. “God, but you’re slow. No wonder the Soviets are still running circles around all you people. Did you enjoy your last few moments with your dear dead schoolteacher? Closure is _so_ important to the end of a relationship.”

Suddenly Jim/Richard is moving back, as though he is being pulled away.

“Stop,” he yells. “Stop it. I’m not finished with him.”

“Yes, you are.” It’s the voice of a young girl: clear and sweet, but very firm. Peter can’t see her.

“ _You_ ,” Jim/Richard snarls. “You got away before I could fix you.” He continues to recede into the darkness, and Peter realises that the wheelchair is being wheeled away.

“You talk too much,” the young girl says.  

The voices fade. Peter drifts off again, willing himself not to feel.

 

An hour or a year later, she’s perched on one corner of his hospital bed. He props himself up on his elbows; he can’t feel any pain in the injured shoulder, very likely because it’s all a dream, and she’s fourteen, in her black leotard, with her hair pulled back tight.

“You went back for the photograph,” she says.

“I had to. It’s all I have left of you.”

She laughs gently. “Don’t be silly. You have everything of me. All the best parts.”

He smiles. “That’s true.” He reaches out to her, and she takes his hand. “I’m so tired, Fawn.”

“I know.”

“It’s all over now, you know? He made sure I couldn’t go back.”

“Did he?” She tiptoes over the bed and settles herself on the edge, sitting right beside him. “You know this for certain?”

And then she’s not the fourteen-year-old Fawn any more: she’s the Fawn on the rooftop, strong and quiet and resolute.

“Smiley, Connie, Sherlock – they saw everything.”

She bends toward him and kisses the top of his head. “Why don’t you save the worrying for when you’re awake, hmmm? Sleep is for sleeping.”

“But Fawn –“

“It was Moriarty’s game but it is still our world, Peter. And you mustn’t forget: in that world, nothing is ever what it seems.” She draws a cool hand over his eyes and closes his eyelids. “Now go to sleep.”

"I have nightmares, Fawn."

"That's what I'm here for," she whispers. "To chase them away."

 

At the Circus, Connie slips the transcripts from the Grigoriev interrogation under Smiley’s door. She nearly jumps when he opens it.

“George! You scared me half to death. I didn’t think you’d be in today.”

“That makes two of us, Con.” He bends to pick up the folder.  “Thanks for these.”

He’s about to close the door when she stops him. “You have him, George. I think you _finally_ have him.”

He looks at her from above the rims of his spectacles. “Well, we don’t know that yet, Con.” He studies the folder, as though he’s trying to see right through the cover to what lies inside. “You know how these things are. The slightest miscalculation and you lose everything.”

She nods: this is typical of Smiley, the circumspection, the way he holds his cards so close to his chest. “Of course, George, dear. I understand.”

"Oh, and Con?"

"Yes, George?"

"Could you make certain that I'm not disturbed for the next ... for the rest of the day? If I need anything, I'll call for someone."

"Of course, dear." She reaches for the doorknob and closes the door behind her.

Smiley sits down at his desk. He takes a sharpened pencil and a pad of ruled yellow paper.

Then he opens the folder and begins.

 

Jim Moriarty is walking along a street in Soho, past clip joints and sex shops and adult cinemas. He’s wearing a hat to hide the bandages and a rather large patch of bare, burnt scalp.

There are three men following him, all keeping a safe distance so as not to be seen or recognized.

They needn’t have bothered.

He’s seen each one of them over the last two days -- one by one, on reflective surfaces: a shop window, a passing motorcyclist’s helmet, a transvestite’s huge sunglasses. He can tell from what little he’s seen that they’re Russians: cut from the same cloth as the men who stormed the old church four days ago.

That they haven’t moved in on him yet, tells him something.

They’re tracking him. For someone.

Jim is a man who’s made many enemies, but the list of people who would use Mafiya to hunt him down is very short.

In fact, he can think of only one name.

He draws his thin jacket closer around himself to ward off the chill of the night air.  And keeps walking.

 

 

 

 


	20. Through the Eye of a Needle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the incessant horrors of the last few weeks, Peter comes to a decision about his future at the Circus. John takes certain matters into his own hands. And Jim gambles on the enemy of his enemy being, quite possibly, a friend.

When Peter wakes up, he sees that George Smiley has fallen asleep in the chair beside his bed. One hand is resting on his stomach, and in his fingers is the photograph that Fawn left Peter.

Peter props himself up on one elbow and studies his superior. He has never really had a chance to reflect on how large a part of his life Smiley has become. It’s almost instinct; in the field, on a mission, when he asks himself how he should handle certain difficult situations, the voices in his head are usually either Control’s or Smiley’s – Smiley’s more often in the last four or five years, as Control turned inward in response to Alleline’s increasingly aggressive machinations.

If he had ever questioned any of Smiley’s instructions or doubted any of his decisions – and Peter had done so more times than he cared to admit – all those questions and doubts now pale beside the reality of this weary old man, who has crumpled himself up into a ball in this chair to keep vigil at his bedside.

Smiley stirs under Peter’s gaze; his eyes open and he begins to straighten up in the chair, tilting his head from side to side to ease the stiffness in his neck.

“How long have you been sitting there, George?” Peter asks.

“Not long, Peter,” Smiley answers, trying to stifle a groan and not completely succeeding. “Not long at all.”

Peter smiles. “You’re not a very good liar.”

Smiley chuckles. "I can be, if necessary." He notices that he’s still holding the photograph and slips it back onto the table beside Peter’s bed. “She hated having her picture taken. Do you remember?”

Peter nods. If Fawn ever turned up in photographs of Circus events -- those surreal Christmas parties when Control was still alive, for example -- she almost always appeared as a blur on the fringes of the group, darting away quickly just as the shutter clicked. This is the only photograph in which she is recognisable. In it, Fawn is not looking at the camera; her eyes are closed, her hair blown back by the wind, the sun shining on her face. She is not smiling, but she looks happy, somehow.

Peter reaches over and takes the photograph from the table. “I took this one myself, years ago. We were on the rooftop of a building in Hong Kong. Control had sent us to wait for that Chinese vice-consul.”

Fawn hadn't Smiley's Babysitter yet at the time; she was a Scalphunter, their youngest and one of their best, trained in marksmanship by Jim Prideaux himself. Peter had taken the photograph before the hit.

“Chen Kaixi. He burned one of our agents there. He was captured, tortured, died a horrible death.”

“Quoyle, yes.”

Smiley removes his spectacles and begins cleaning the lenses with his tie. “He was one of Control’s old mates from the war. He was livid when he found out. I’d asked him if sending you out there was the wisest thing, but … well, you know how he was.”

“Loyalty. Control was all about loyalty. In life, and most certainly in death.”

Smiley nods. “I don’t suppose Fawn ever told you what her instructions were.”

“Only that Control told her to make certain that Chen knew in his last moments that it was payback for Quoyle.”

Smiley leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I read your final report. I’m quite certain he knew.”

Peter thinks back on that day, at the cold, casual precision with which Fawn carried out her instructions. He was watching what was happening on the street through high-powered binoculars: Chen coming out of the building, the first hit to the knee, the second through the groin, the third through the shoulder. Fawn had taken her time, allowed the horror and pain of each hit to sink in through Chen’s mind, recalibrating and recalculating the timing and position of each shot as the diplomat sank to the pavement, as the people around him began reacting to what was happening.

“Jesus, Fawn,” Peter had snapped at her. “Just fucking finish him off already, will you?”

Fawn had looked at him then: a look of infinite patience. She didn’t say anything. She turned back to the task and looked through the sight of the rifle. The fourth shot went straight into Chen’s eye, right through his brain and out the back of his skull. There was massive chaos on the street but on the rooftop, it was perfectly calm, except for the hammering of Peter’s own heart. Fawn had already stepped away from the parapet and begun to pack up her gear with quick efficiency.

Peter had been shaken by what he saw. He’d always known Fawn’s hits to be clean and professional. This was different; this was cruel and excessive and inhumane. He grabbed her arm.

“You couldn’t do it in one shot? You needed four?”             

Fawn had looked down at his hand, and then back at him, her face expressionless.

“I do as I’m told.”

Loyalty. Control had saved Fawn, and this had always been Fawn’s blind spot. She had always given him her absolute loyalty, and after him, Smiley. Fawn had obeyed the two men without question, until it was time to follow her own path: a short path, as it turned out, but years in the making.

“Peter?” Smiley asks after a long silence.

“George, I … I think it’s best if I leave."

Smiley’s eyebrows knit together in a frown. “Leave?”

“Leave the Circus.” When he speaks the words, he’s convinced they’re right. He’s given nearly twenty years of his life to the service and lost so much in the process. His career’s destroyed, anyway; James Moriarty has made certain of that. _Nothing to go back to_.

“Peter.”

“I don’t really feel like discussing it right now, George, but I won’t change my mind. It’s time.”

Smiley rises slowly to his feet, his joints stiff and aching. He comes closer to Peter, and then pats him on the shoulder.

“Whatever you think is best, Peter.”

“I’m serious, George. I told you. I’m not changing my mind.”

Smiley stuffs his hands into the pockets of his coat and rocks on his heels; for a moment, Peter is reminded of an overgrown child. “All right, Peter. We’ll discuss it when you’re well enough.” He turns and walks to the door.

“I’m sorry, George.”

Smiley pauses in the doorway, but doesn’t look back. “So am I, Peter. So am I.”

 

When Smiley slides into the passenger seat beside him, Ricki can immediately tell that something is wrong.

“Everythin’ good, Mr. Smiley?” he asks.

Smiley sighs deeply, then picks up his briefcase from the floor of the car and puts it on his lap. “Shall we head over to Whitehall, Ricki? I have an appointment with Mr. Holmes.”

“Yes, sir.”

They drive through the streets of London in complete silence for a while, then Smiley shifts in his seat, looking out the window.

“Peter says he’s leaving, Ricki.”

“Leavin’?”

“The Circus. For good.” He drums his fingers on the briefcase. “I don’t suppose anyone can blame him. Not after everything that’s happened to him lately.”

Ricki twists the steering wheel viciously to the left, and the car swerves with a violent lurch to avoid a lorry. He’s gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles have gone white.

“`e can’t leave, Mr. Smiley. And `e won’t.”

Smiley stares at him. “How can you be so certain, Ricki?”

“`Cause `e’s just like you and me, Mr. Smiley.”

“And how is that?”

“This is all we `ave. We got nowhere else to go.”

 

Half an hour later, Smiley is ushered into Mycroft Holmes’ office.

He doesn’t even look up from his papers. “George.”

“Mr. Holmes.”

“Please,” Mycroft says, waving a hand at one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat and brief me while I finish this … paperwork.” He is signing a series of papers in his precise, slanting script.

“Well, you’ve read our report on the interrogation of Anton Grigoriev.”

“I have, indeed.”  He flips over a page and scribbles at the bottom. “Excellent work.”

Smiley clears his throat. “There is, of course, the matter of the young woman.”

“Of course. You wish to determine how well she is doing.” Mycroft, finally done, pushes the sheaf of papers to one side of the desk and turns his complete attention to Smiley. “But there are certain legal obstacles.”

“I have sent someone inside and he assures me that our information is correct. However …”

“You wish to secure the cooperation of the administrators.”

“Well, yes. And I am afraid that in order to do that –“

“You will need this,” Mycroft says, handing him a sheet of paper, one of several that he has just signed.

 Smiley takes it and studies what’s written on it for several minutes. Then he looks up at Mycroft. “Mr. Holmes, I – I cannot tell you how much I …”

“Then don’t, George,” Mycroft says, rising to his feet. “It is a simple matter, really. Once I’d read your report, it was the only logical thing to do. If there should be any inquiries later – and I very much doubt that there would be – that authority will hold up in any court in the land. Indeed, in the world.”

Smiley stands, too, a bit unsteadily.  When Mycroft holds out his hand, he takes it.

“I am … very proud of what you’ve done here, George. What you’ve all done. In spite of all the … challenges of the last few months.”

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”

Mycroft sees him to the door.

“And, George?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t you think it’s about time you called me Mycroft?”

 

When Irene opens her eyes, the tall, slim, dark-haired man from outside the abandoned church is standing by the window. He turns to look at her, fixes her with pale, unearthly eyes.

“Good, you’re awake,” he says.

She tries to reach for the remote control for the hospital bed but it’s lying on the bedside table a bit out of her reach, and the movement causes her a great deal of pain. He responds quickly, snatching up the controls and raising her to a half-sitting position.

“Better?"

She nods. Her mouth is dry and there’s a funny taste in it, no doubt due to all the medication she’s been receiving. She glances at the pitcher of water on the table, and he’s reacting in seconds, pouring her a glass, handing it to her. She drinks deeply, then hands the glass back.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Are you feeling well enough to answer some questions?”

“Who are you?” she asks warily. “You don’t look like you’re from the police.”

“I’m not,” he says coldly. “But I have a great deal of interest in your client, James Moriarty.”

She looks away. “He’s not my client any more."

“I want you to tell me what happened in that church. Why you were brought in.”

She looks back at him and raises an eyebrow. “You don’t look like a stupid man. It’s been four days since the church. You’ve no doubt learnt everything there is to know about me.”

“You hurt Peter… Guillam.”

But she’s quick, too, despite the drugs that make her feel light-headed; quick to pick up on the split-second of hesitation before he tacked on Peter’s surname at the end of the sentence. _Ah, I see_.

“Is he someone special to you, then?”

He sneers at her. “James Moriarty is very, very special to me. Tell me what you know.”

She leans back against the pillows, already feeling drained. “I don’t know anything. He hired me on occasion. Straightforward blackmail gigs, most of the time. Nothing too … well, beyond the pale.”

He smirks. “Interesting. I suspect your standards for what lies _beyond the pale_ are very different from those of the ordinary person.”

Her blue eyes narrow. “Do you want me to tell you what I know, or would you prefer to just stand there and mock me?”

He takes a deep breath. “Go on.”

“When he called me for this job, he told me it would be more or less the same thing. Play with the gentleman, get it on film, get something out of it.”

“But something was different – _off_ about it all. For one, the mark was clearly unwilling, clearly drugged. When I came back the next night, he would be worse off than the night before. I couldn’t …” and here she shuts her eyes tight and shakes her head. “I couldn’t continue.”

“It was you, then. You called the Mafiya.”

She nods. “Someone owed me a favour.”

“Who?”

“You honestly expect me to tell you?”

“I honestly expect you to recognise that it’s in your best interests to tell me.”

She is quiet for a while, but Sherlock can tell that she’s nervously weighing the benefits of telling him against the risks.

“I only know him as Arkady. He’s hired me for several jobs, too. Very high up in the Mafiya hierarchy across the whole of Europe. Except …”

He leans toward her, fully alert, one hand braced on the bed frame behind her. “Except what?”

“Except I don’t think he really is Mafiya. He controls a large part of its operations but I don’t think he’s one of them.”

“Then what is he?”

“Soviet intelligence.”

He turns away from her, then, thinking, and she can almost see the gears in his head cranking away at a furious pace. _He’s fascinating_ , she thinks: cold, machine-like, but also vulnerable somehow. The way he tried to disguise his use of Peter’s name, the feeling behind it: _friend? Lover?_

He stands at the window with his back to her for a long time. His palms are pressed together, forefingers touching his lips. Then he takes his phone out of his pocket and begins tapping madly away at the keys, muttering to himself, occasionally chuckling.

She is trying to remember where she’s seen him before, and then it clicks into place.

“You’re Sherlock Holmes.”

He turns around slowly, but doesn’t answer.

“The detective. I’ve read John Watson’s blog, but that was a while back. I never thought I would ever actually meet you.”

He looks at her, then holds out the mobile phone with the screen facing her. “Arkady Leonov,” he says, coming closer so that she can see the face on it. “Alias Arkady Pechkin, alias Anatoly Rykov. In fact, there’s a whole list of aliases on his Interpol file. You have very interesting friends in very, very high places.”

She raises her eyes to meet his and for a moment, he sees her fear. But it quickly changes to defiance.

“I told you, he only hired me for certain jobs.”

“And yet he _owed_ you a favour. Something big enough to force him to send men to their deaths.”

“I didn’t _know_ that was going to happen,” she protests. “I just wanted to get him out of there. Peter. _Your_ Peter.”

Sherlock is caught off-guard by this. “He’s not _my_ –“ he begins, but he soon realises that she’s done this deliberately, to wrong-foot him, and he quickly recovers. “I’m certain his superiors will be grateful to you for trying to save his life. But I don’t have the luxury of time to waste on gratitude. I need to find James Moriarty.”

He walks away and leaves the room.  He doesn’t hear her say:

“And I hope you do.”

 

It is bitterly cold at this tiny airstrip just outside of Moscow. But Karla is wearing only his customary thin jacket and dark trousers, the scarf around his neck his only real concession to the chill.

He waits for the large black car to drive up toward him. When it comes to a stop, Colonel Zotov steps out. He is not in his Soviet military uniform, opting instead for a heavy wool coat, a suit and a thick black turtleneck. Dressed in plain clothes, Zotov looks like a burly businessman or an academic.

The driver gets out of the car and runs to the boot to fetch the colonel’s bags. Then he runs to the waiting plane to stow them away in the luggage hold.

Zotov stands beside Karla; they’re both looking at the plane, not at each other.

“Everything ready, then?”

“Yes,” Zotov answers.

“Good.”

It’s awkward, this -- standing around, knowing very well what happens next. Forty years, and now their paths diverge. History is about to change, and their history along with it: the fall of an empire begins on this tarmac, and they’re the only two people who know it yet.

“It may be a while before we see each other again, my friend,” Karla says quietly. “Things may be … different when you get back.”

Zotov has heard the rumours: that Karla has been called to appear before the Council of Ministers. That news of the London incident is spreading like wildfire through the highest ranks of the Soviet hierarchy. That questions are now being raised about why Karla had organised a clandestine operation that did not involve officers and agents of the Thirteenth Directorate.

People are still afraid – terrified -- of Karla, and rightly so; that terror is the only thing that’s stalling the inevitable. But it’s only a matter of time before those questions are answered, and when they are, Karla will be in a very delicate position indeed. An execution would not be out of the question.

Zotov shrugs; he’s always been tough and unsentimental, and Karla is grateful for this.

“So. I’ll see you when I see you.”

It’s a lie, they both know it.

“I’ll bring you a souvenir,” Zotov says. “Maybe his head in a sack. If you like.”

Karla chuckles. “That won’t be necessary, Kirill.”

One of the attendants steps out of the plane doors and gives the colonel the thumbs-up, signaling that they’re ready to depart. Zotov finally turns to Karla.

“Till next time, then.”

Karla holds out his hand, but is mildly surprised when Zotov engulfs him in a warm embrace. He holds himself perfectly still at first, but soon relaxes into it. His arms, too short to fully encompass Zotov’s bulk, come up behind his back and pat it gently.

“Goodbye, comrade.”

Zotov lets go. He turns away and makes his way quickly toward the plane and up the steps. He doesn’t look back.

 

Peter sticks his head in the door of Irene’s room.

"Mind some company?"

She sits up in bed. "Come in."

He closes the door behind him, then crosses the room to her bedside. She pats the empty space on the bed near her legs, and he hops up to sit there, wincing a bit from the pain of his injuries.

“How’s your shoulder?” she asks, concerned.

“Slowly getting better. I’m all taped up. How about you?”

“Better, too” she says. “But it will take a while before I can get out of here.”

Peter can see that she’s still weak, but she’s a fighter; she’ll pull out of this.

"I should be thanking you," she says.

"What for?"

"They told me you asked them to take it easy on me."

"You saved my life."

"Still." She shrugs. "I'm not used to people doing nice things for me. Unless I have something on them." She draws a cigarette and a lighter from the folds of her blanket. "Want a smoke?"

He laughs. “Where did you get those? And is it wise for someone who’s recovering from a collapsed lung to have them?”

“I was saving it for when I got better,” she says, her face alight with mischief. “Here, you can have it and I can sit here envying you.”

He accepts the cigarette gratefully. She lights it for him, and he takes a long drag from it.

"So. When do you think you'll be getting back to work?"

"After becoming an Internet sensation?” he asks, with a small, bitter laugh. “I’ll have to switch to an entirely new field."

Her eyes widen, then drop to the lighter in her hand. "I guess nobody's told you yet. What with everything that's happened."

"Told me what?"

"Peter." Her voice is unspeakably gentle. "It was never on the Internet. I checked the connections after the third night. He never intended to put any of it online. He was just ... just messing with your head. He was bored, and it was all just a game."

The cigarette very nearly drops from Peter's fingers, and she takes it from him to prevent any possible accident. "You mean all that ... It was never --"

She shakes her head sadly. "Not ever. Not any of it."

"Then what did -- what did George and Sherlock see?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask them. But I'm pretty certain of this: none of the things he made me do to you were ever streamed or recorded. The cameras weren't hooked up."

Relief surges through Peter, washing over him like a wave. He finds it difficult to breathe. She stubs out the cigarette and reaches for him, lays his head on her shoulder. He buries his face in her neck and weeps without a sound.

"It's all right, Peter. It's all right," she whispers.

 

Sherlock is helping John ascend the steps to 221B. Mrs. Hudson is waiting at the top of the stairs; when she sees John, she claps her hands together happily, then reaches out to give him a hug.

“Welcome home, my dear,” she says brightly.

He kisses her on both cheeks. “It’s good to be back, Mrs. Hudson. And so _very_ good to see you.”                 

She opens the door and breezes in, but John stands at the threshold for a moment, taking it all in.

“John?” Sherlock asks, concerned.

“Nothing. It’s good. Good to be home,” he says quietly.

“I’ve made tea, and baked you boys some muffins,” Mrs. Hudson calls out to them from the kitchen.

John sits down in his customary chair. He looks around the flat like it’s all new to him: the skull on the mantelpiece, the books, the patterned wallpaper.

“I’ll get you some of that tea,” Sherlock says.

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Hudson bustles into the room. “Well, I’ve got to be going, but I’ll be back this afternoon. You boys let me know if you need anything else.” She comes over to John and gives him another hug. “I’m so glad that you’re all right, John.”

“So am I, Mrs. H.”

When the door closes behind her, Sherlock emerges from the kitchen with a cup of tea. He hands it to John, who accepts it gratefully. Then he moves to the desk, turns his laptop on, takes a seat and begins tapping away rapidly at the keys.

“Everything all right?” John asks.

“Hmmm? Yes. Yes, everything’s all right.”

“Except it isn’t.”

Sherlock looks up from the computer screen. “Isn’t it?”

John sets the cup and saucer down on the table beside him. “When’s the last time you spoke with Peter?”

Sherlock turns his attention back to the screen. “Why, what does it matter?”

“What does it – It _matters_ , Sherlock. You’ve been out of sorts since that night. Not in a way that most people would notice, but I notice.  I see more than you think I can, you know.”

“He won’t _speak_ with me,” Sherlock snaps at him. “What do you expect me to do? It’s not as though I haven’t tried. So why don’t we just leave things alone, shall we?”

John sighs. “Sherlock. You _care_ about this man.”

“Immaterial,” he says dismissively. “And now, John, I have work to do. I would greatly appreciate it if you would allow me to just get on with it.”

 

The next day, Smiley finds himself back at the awful coffee shop not far from the institution. He sits at the same table; the same waitress brings him another mediocre cup of coffee with the same careless indifference as she did the first time he was here.  This time, Smiley doesn’t bother to glare at her; it’s a waste of energy. He watches the world outside the window and waits.

Soon, the person he is waiting for stops across the street. She’s wearing a coat over her habit. She waits for the light to change and crosses the street along with a few other people, her veil and the hem of the habit flapping in the wind.

She opens the door of the coffee shop and spots him almost instantly.

“Mr. Smiley?” she asks, with a heavy Russian accent.

“Mother Felicity.” He pulls a chair out for her and pushes it back gently when she’s seated, then returns to his own seat. “Thank you for coming.”

She is clearly not pleased to be here. “You did not give me much of a choice.”

“Yes, I know. I apologise, but it was … necessary.”

She looks nervously around the coffee shop, then outside the window. “There is not much that I can tell you without breaching our confidentiality rules.”

Smiley nods. “I understand.” He bends, picks up the briefcase under the table and opens it. He withdraws a sheet of paper from it and hands it over to her. “Perhaps this will enable you to overcome your reservations.”

She takes the paper and reads it carefully. By the time she is finished, she has gone pale. She hands it back to him.

“Very well, Mr. Smiley.  We can discuss things better at my office.” She stands stiffly, although Smiley can tell that she’s thoroughly shaken. “Come with me.”

 

The man called Arkady Leonov is drinking a beer at a miserable dive in Soho. The beer is not bad, but the nuts in the dish are stale. He eats them anyway. He’s lived the kind of life in which one eats whatever is put before him, because God knows when one will see any kind of food again.

A small man wearing a cloth cap takes the stool beside him at the bar and asks for a beer. He waits in silence until it comes, then quickly downs half of it before turning to Leonov.

“Should I be flattered?” he asks.

Leonov doesn’t look up from the nuts. “I don’t know. Should you be?”

The other man removes the cap, lays it on the bar counter beside his beer. “The head of Moscow Centre’s legendary Thirteenth Directorate has sent his very own right-hand man to come after me. I think I should be.”

“And are you?"

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.” Jim grins at him. “So what have you got planned for me? Are you taking me back to Moscow? Nice little winter holiday at Karla’s dacha?”

Leonov shoves the now-empty dish away from him. “The General has never been the dacha type.”

“Really?” Jim asks, black eyes wide with mock curiosity. “Kind of makes you wonder where he took Tatiana’s mother for their trysts, then.”

At this, Leonov’s face darkens. He finally turns to look at Jim, then gets off his stool, looming over him. “There is no dacha in your future, Mr. Moriarty. In fact, there is no _future_ in your future. _That_ is what I have planned for you.”

Jim stares up at him. “You don’t have much of a sense of humour on you, do you, Colonel?”

Leonov takes his wallet from his trouser pocket. He fishes out a bill – big enough to cover the cost of his drink and Jim’s, with plenty left over – and then slides it under his empty glass.

“Where you are concerned, Mr. Moriarty, I have no sense of humour at all. The next time we see each other, it will not be so pleasant.” He turns and leaves.

“Well, then,” Jim thinks, gulping down the rest of his beer. “That’s a meeting I’m going to have to miss.”

 

It’s Peter’s last day in hospital; he’s shuffling around his room, packing his few belongings into a small trolley case.

There’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” he says absently, trying to remember if he’s left anything in the bathroom.

Someone clears his throat behind him and Peter turns around. He’s quite certain the surprise on his face is obvious.

“Dr. Watson,” he says softly.

John steps forward briskly, his hand extended to Peter. “John, please.”

Peter shakes his hand. “John. Peter Guillam.”

“Yes, I know.” John looks around the hospital room. “Heard you’ve been watching out for us. Sherlock and me. I wanted to thank you personally."

Peter nods, then looks away, suddenly deeply interested in the contents of the trolley case. “It wasn’t just me.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’m grateful to all of you. And I’m sorry about your ... colleague.”

“Friend,” Peter whispers.

“Excuse me?”

He turns back to John. “ _Friend_. She was my friend.”

John nods. “Of course.”

Peter stuffs a towel into the case and zips it up. “Thank you for coming, John, I appreciate it. But I’m afraid that–“

“Yes, you are.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re afraid. That’s why you won’t talk to him.”

Peter takes a deep breath. “I’m not sure what he’s told you, Dr. Watson, but –“

“The name is John,” he says patiently. “And he hasn’t told me very much. But from someone like him, _not very much_ is the equivalent to too much information from other people. And from what he _has_ told me, I can see that he cares about you. Cares a great deal.”

“This is not something I care to discuss with you, John.”

“Why not?”

“Because it isn’t any of your concern.”

“What? Sorry, no. Sherlock’s welfare is very much my concern. He is not a man given to sentiment. So when I see that he’s – _pained_ by something, it’s my responsibility to –“

“And why is that, John?” Peter asks, moving closer to him. “Why do you feel so responsible for Sherlock’s happiness?”

John laughs. “Oh, no. No, you’re not going to turn this around and make this all about me.”

“It’s a valid question, Doctor Watson.”

“Look,” John says, forefinger stabbing the air in Peter’s direction. “You’re both behaving like idiots, all right? You’re blaming him for something that isn’t his fault, and he’s too proud to –“

“ _Blaming_ him?” Peter shakes his head. “Look, you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. This conversation is over.” He picks up the trolley case and begins to walk away, but John blocks his path.

“Peter.” John looks up at him, and he’s clearly distressed. “Just … Just talk to him, would you? Please? Surely it’s not too much to ask.”

They regard each other in silence for a moment, and then Peter moves away, heading for the door.

He stops halfway through.

“You don’t know who I am or what I’ve been through these last few months, John. Sherlock deserves … better. Certainly better than me.”

“And from what I can tell – I think he already has it.”

John turns around, but Peter is no longer there.

 

The line in Smiley’s office buzzes, and he presses a button to take the call.

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, sir.”

“Thank you, Janet,” Smiley says. “Please put him through.”

“Mr. Smiley."

“Mr. Holmes.” Smiley can hear Sherlock tapping away furiously on a computer keyboard.

“I’ve been trying to trace this man Arkady Leonov’s reported movements throughout Europe in the last decade. And then correlating those with the information available on him. And somehow, everything leads me to one conclusion.”

“Yes?”

“This man can only be Karla’s deputy at the Thirteenth Directorate: Colonel Kirill Zotov. Everything fits: the physical description, the confluence of events and circumstances –“

“That is something we’ve long suspected ourselves, Mr. Holmes. But it has been difficult to back up our suspicions with hard data.”

“Of course. He’s very good at hiding his tracks. Here’s the thing. Since James Moriarty’s disappearance, I’ve put out the word among my homeless network to report any sightings to me. This morning someone sent me information that they’d seen him at a bar in Soho last night. He spoke briefly with a man who reportedly had a Russian accent – a man who fits the descriptions of both Arkady Leonov and Kirill Zotov perfectly.”

Smiley taps the surface of his desk with a pen. “So he’s here. In London. Slipped in right under our noses.”

“And he’s here for one thing.”

“James Moriarty.”

When the conversation ends, Smiley reflects on what it means for Karla to have sent Zotov away to London.

His deputy. His most trusted lieutenant.

 _His best friend_.

Smiley takes a blank sheet of paper and his pen, and begins to write.

 

The security alarms go off in the building that houses Mycroft Holmes’ offices at precisely 10:51am on Thursday. Mycroft hears the pandemonium that breaks out outside, but he barely looks up from his papers.

His door bursts open and his assistant, Anthea, appears in the doorway. She stands stiffly, unnaturally, and then moves into the room in a jerky gait.

Mycroft turns back to the paperwork on his desk, looking not a little bored.

“You certainly have a flair for drama. But it’s a gift that must be used judiciously, lest it become … monotonous.”

Anthea pitches forward, shoved roughly to the floor by Jim Moriarty. Mycroft glances down at her; she nods to indicate that she’s all right.

“Your security here is laughable,” Jim says, setting on Mycroft’s desk the gun he had been holding to Anthea’s head seconds before. He sinks into a chair and puts both feet up on the desk. He turns to Anthea. “You can run along, my lovely. Tell security I’m here, and get us a cup of tea while you’re at it, hmmm?”

She glares at him, then rises to her feet. “Mr. Holmes?"

“Yes, do call security, Anthea. And take this –“ Mycroft says, gesturing toward the gun, “outside with you, would you?”

She walks over to the desk and picks up the gun.

“With pleasure, Sir.”

In one smooth, swift motion, she whacks Moriarty in the face with the grip. His head snaps to one side, and soon there’s a trickle of blood from his lips. He feels around his mouth with his tongue, then spits out blood and a tooth onto the carpet.

“Ooh, she’s a wildcat,” he says, grinning at Mycroft. “I like that.” He leers at her backside as she walks out of the room.

Mycroft eyes him with distaste. “May I ask, to what do I owe the honour of your presence?”

Jim shrugs.

“I thought you might enjoy it if I turned myself in.”

 

 


	21. Resolución

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft Holmes fiercely protects that which is dearest to him. And Peter tells Sherlock that he has missed a great secret that is right before his very eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the terminology of the tango, "resolución" means the resolution or the close of a pattern. As always, I use the terminology for chapters that deal largely with the relationship between Peter and Sherlock.

Mycroft stands and walks over to a side table; he pours scotch into two glasses. He moves back toward his desk and hands one of the glasses to Jim

“Thank you,” Jim says, swirling the liquid around in the glass and observing it closely. “Your security may be laughable but your hospitality is first-rate.”

Mycroft raises an eyebrow at Jim’s feet on his desk. “Did I hear you correctly? You want to turn yourself in?”

“Indeed.” He takes a sip, swishes it around the inside of his mouth as though to wash away the blood from Anthea’s blow, then smiles. “This is excellent, Mycroft. You’re a man of exquisite tastes.”

Mycroft sits down, rests his elbows on the arms of his chair and steeples his fingers together under his chin. “Let me repeat myself. You said something about turning yourself in.”

“Yes, I thought that might interest you.” Jim finishes off his drink and sets the empty glass down on Mycroft’s desk.

“Yes, I am very interested indeed. Might I ask why you’ve come to this decision?”

Jim sighs. “I’m bored, Mycroft. You understand, as I’m sure your brother would. We’re titans, forced to co-exist with pygmies.”

“And you think of prison as some kind of … play group? Day nursery for criminal masterminds?” Mycroft’s lips curl in contempt. “You expect the state to keep you occupied? _Entertained_?”

“Ooohh. _The state_.” Jim says it as though a shiver is running down his spine. “How magisterial of you. But yes, I do. I do expect the state to entertain me. I think _the state_ would find me very entertaining too. And very, very useful.”

“Useful?” There is a note of heightened interest in Mycroft’s voice -- too subtle, perhaps, for ordinary people to pick up on, but Jim is not ordinary people.  He removes his feet from the desk and leans forward, elbows on knees.

“Got your attention now, haven’t I?” he grins. “Yes, useful. I have knowledge of certain … personalities. Certain incidents. Certain … organisations. And governments. All of which your _state_ has spent a great deal of time and energy and resources trying to understand. And failing almost completely.”

Mycroft ponders this a while.

“And you would be willing to give us all this information? In exchange for what? Immunity?”

Jim shrugs. “I don’t need immunity. You haven’t been able to pin me down for anything I’ve ever done – I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.” He leans back in the chair and puts his feet up on Mycroft’s desk again. “I’m just awfully, awfully bored. I need something new. A challenge, possibly.”

Mycroft is silent again.

“When you abducted Peter. What did you mean when you told Sherlock it was time for the closing credits?”

Jim lets out a little snort of impatience. “Oh, what does it matter? I tell your brother certain things to provoke a reaction. Sometimes he’s so predictable.”

“He said you sounded … exhausted.”

Jim waves a hand dismissively. “Supervising the special treatment of a Circus agent will do that to you.”

“No.” A smile slowly spreads over Mycroft’s face. “You meant to lure us all to that church, and to ensure that we wouldn’t come out of there alive.  But that wasn’t all, was it?” He rises from his chair and plants the palms of his hands on the desk, leaning toward Jim. “You meant to take as many of us with you as you possibly could.”

Jim’s left eyelid twitches a little. It’s a tiny thing, but Mycroft, too, is anything but ordinary, and this tells him he’s on the right track.

“You’re a man who believes in controlling his own destiny, James. Controlling even the manner of his own exit. But the lovely Miss Adler spoiled your plans, didn’t she? And now … Now you’ve come here. Come to _me_. And I seriously doubt that it’s because of anything special I or the state can offer you to alleviate your boredom. No. You’re here because something has spun wildly out of your control, and you don’t like it."

Mycroft moves away from the desk to stand behind Jim.

“You don’t want immunity,” he says, bending down to whisper in Jim’s ear. “You want _protection_.”

Jim quickly puts his feet down and whirls around to reply, but Mycroft has already spun away from him, hands in the pockets of his trousers, that small, knowing smile still on his face.  

“No, no, James, let me finish. I imagine you think we would trade anything for the treasure trove of information you undoubtedly possess. But I can assure you of one thing: I am not the state, and the state is not me. Had you approached anyone else – even George Smiley – they would no doubt have done the right thing and taken you into custody.”

“And that, right there, is where you have made a grave miscalculation. You came to me, and I am not a man who always plays by the rules.” And like a cobra in mid-strike, Mycroft is suddenly looming over Jim, in a burst of speed and motion and sheer venom that stuns him. “ _Especially not where my brother is concerned_.”

Jim blinks rapidly up at him. He opens his mouth to say something, but Mycroft has already straightened up and is now moving toward the door. “I am sure you have some witty riposte for me, James, but I really don’t have the time. Anthea will show you out.” He opens the door, and Anthea is already standing close by. She moves to stand in the doorway, looking coolly at Jim.

“Anthea, do be so kind as to get security to escort Mr. Moriarty out of the building. And make sure that his departure is as smooth and fuss-free as we can make it, hmmm?”

Anthea smiles, quickly understanding the meaning behind Mycroft’s words.  “It would be my pleasure, sir.”

She stands aside, and Jim sees a group of armed guards waiting in the outer room behind her.  Jim stands slowly, almost reluctantly, then walks to the door.

He pauses in front of Mycroft, but doesn’t look at him.

“All these rules you break for Sherlock. Does any of it even _matter_ to him?”

Mycroft smirks. “You’re asking the wrong question.”

“What is the right question, then?”

“You should be asking if any of it even matters – to _me_. You see, there isn’t a single rule that I would not break to protect my brother from people like you.” Mycroft leans close, his breath warm on Jim’s ear. “Not. A single. Rule.”

He steps back to let Jim pass. “Run along, now, dear Jim,” he says brightly. “I’d wish you good luck but then … I think we both know that you’ve well exceeded your quota.”

Jim casts him one lingering, poisonous look, but that small smile never leaves Mycroft’s face. Jim slinks out of the room, and the guards quickly take charge of him.

Anthea hangs back for a moment.

“Any further instructions, sir?”

“Hmmm, yes. Please have our people monitor Soho for our special guest from the Soviet Union. And when you find him, please arrange a meeting for me. Something discreet. And very cordial. We want him to feel … welcome in our fair city.”

She smiles. “I’ll get on it right away.”

 

Peter is making himself breakfast when he hears a knock at the door. He sets the empty coffee pot down on the counter to answer it.

“Good morning,” Sherlock says. “May I come in?”

Peter nods, steps aside to let him enter.  Sherlock shrugs off his coat; he is about to toss it carelessly onto the back of a chair when Peter takes it from his hands and hangs it up properly on a coat-rack near the door.

They stand apart, looking at each other without saying a word.

It’s Peter who breaks the silence. “I was just about to make coffee. Would you –“

“How is your shoulder?” Sherlock asks quietly.

“It’s much better. Thank you for asking.”

Sherlock turns away, walks around the room. “Are you undergoing some sort of physical therapy for it?”

“Yes. It will take a while to get it back to where it used to be, or even close. But yes, I’m working on it.”

Sherlock wanders off into the study, and Peter follows.  The detective stops in front of the bookshelf where Richard’s books have lain untouched for months. He draws one of the books out, running his fingers over the cover.

“I’m sorry about your school teacher,” he says.

Peter takes a deep breath. “I – “ and he stops, because he doesn’t really know what to say.

Sherlock puts the book back where he found it, crosses the room in a few quick, long strides and presses himself against Peter. He cradles the back of his head gently and the kiss he plants on his lips is soft, warm, ineffably tender.  And Peter kisses him back, but when Sherlock moves to deepen the kiss, he draws back, his hand on Sherlock’s chest. __

_Slow down. Wait._

_Stop_.

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispers. “I can’t.”

“Peter,” Sherlock says, trying to tamp down his frustration. “I’m trying to understand. I … _help me to understand_.”

Peter gently sits Sherlock down on a chair, then kneels in front of him. “Can’t you see, Sherlock? Too much has happened to me in the last … I’m too damaged.”

“You’re getting therapy for that.”

“I’m not talking about my shoulder. I’m talking about … Fawn, and Richard. About what happened to me when I was abducted. About everything, really.”

“There’s therapy for that, too,” Sherlock says, clearly struggling to understand.

Peter touches Sherlock’s face. “Sherlock. It’s going to take a while to fix me. You shouldn’t have to wait around for that. I don’t want you to wait.”

“Peter. When Richard left, did he know everything about you? Did you tell him before he died?”

It’s Peter’s turn now to grope for understanding. “Did he – what? No. When he left, I couldn’t tell him anything. It would have been … we were in the middle of the hunt for the mole. There was too much at stake. And before he died … I …” He’s grasping for words that won’t come.

“Peter.” Sherlock has never been so gentle, so careful, in his whole life. “Your life is all about secrets. Don’t you want to – isn’t it time to lay this burden down? Don’t you think the best thing for a man with secrets ... is to be with someone it’s not possible to keep secrets from?”

“Look, before she died, Fawn told you to find something good. Something lasting and true.” He takes Peter’s hands in his own. “I can’t promise you _good_ , Peter. And _lasting_ is something that’s beyond my power to predict. All that I _can_ offer you is something _true_. Will you take it, Peter? Is that good enough?”

Peter bends his head to kiss Sherlock’s hands. “Sherlock. God knows I want to. But _I’m_ not good enough for it. Not now. And I won’t be for a long while yet. Don’t wait for me.”

He rises to his feet, and Sherlock’s eyes follow him sadly.  In a moment, he, too, stands, unsteadily; he’s afraid his legs won’t bear him.

Peter can see all this – can remember only too well the feeling of having your heart cut out of you while you’re still alive, and you wondering how it is that you’re still standing. He reaches out for him and they hold each other, Peter’s fingers lacing through the dark curls. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “So very sorry.”

“You keep apologising, Peter,” Sherlock finally says, and when he pulls back, Peter can see that a solitary tear has stained his cheek. “I’m not sure I understand why.”

 _You keep apologising, Peter. I’m not sure I understand why_.

He’s heard those words before.

“Because I’ve hurt you. And I’ve hurt other people. By things I’ve done. Or failed to do. Fawn died and I couldn’t help her. Richard died because of me. And I need to … make things right. With myself, if with no one else.”

Sherlock nods. “All right, Peter.  I think I can see now.” He wipes away the tear quickly, with the back of his hand. “I must respect your wishes. And I – I honestly wish you well.”

He moves away from Peter now, feeling wretched inside but outwardly composed. He walks out of the study, crosses the living room and takes his coat from the rack.

Peter follows close behind, and helps him put his coat on.

“May I offer you a word of advice, Sherlock? Would you take it from a man who ... From a friend?”

Sherlock busies himself with buttoning up the coat. “Of course, Peter.”

“For someone who’s impossible to keep secrets from, you seem to have missed one that lies right before your very eyes.”

Sherlock frowns, turns to face him. “Right before my – what are you talking about?”

Peter smiles sadly at him. “Go home, Sherlock. Go home, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

Sherlock opens the door, but pauses in the doorway. He doesn’t look at Peter; he might possibly break if he does.

“Will I never see you again?”

Peter takes a deep breath. “I can’t see that far ahead, Sherlock. Can you?”

Sherlock twists around and grasps Peter at the nape of his neck, pulling him close.

This time the kiss is different: deep, wet, hungry, anguished. It is everything they cannot say, everything they cannot give, everything they cannot be to each other.

It is goodbye.

Peter stands in the doorway long after Sherlock has disappeared down the hall.

Before today, he did not think he had any heart left to break.

Now he knows he was wrong.

 

Arkady Leonov is about to cross the street when a gleaming black Jaguar slides up to block his way. The door opens and a beautiful, dark-haired woman steps out.

“Colonel Zotov? Kirill Zotov?” she asks pleasantly.

He’s been in enough situations like this to know that it’s often useless to argue or deny things. Instead, he merely asks, “What do you want?”

“My superior would like to invite you to tea.”

“ _Tea_?” He wants to laugh out loud. He’s heard many euphemisms for detention and torture, but this one has got to be the best so far.

“Afternoon tea. A sort of -- welcome to London.” She holds the door open for him. He looks in and sees that there’s no one else in the back seat. He’s quite certain, however, that there are others in the vicinity, watching. If he tries to resist, they’ll make certain he arrives in time for “afternoon tea”.

He shrugs. “Afternoon tea, then.” He gets into the car without complaint. She sits beside him and closes the car door.

“Now, there are some rules you need to observe when you get there,” she begins.

“Of course.” Rules – every prison has them. He understands rules, they’re the difference between getting out alive or dead.

“You’re not to talk to anybody you see there. Not even to say hello, or good afternoon. You’re not to make any noise whatsoever. Not until you’re led to the special room.”

 _The special room_. Of course. That would be soundproofed, so that nobody can hear you scream. He’s not much of a screamer but he certainly has his breaking point – that time in Siberia showed him exactly where that point is. He wonders idly if the British, with their manners and their restraint, would have the balls to bring him to that point again.

He supposes he could just casually reach over, break her neck and make his escape but something tells him that would just be asking for more trouble.

So he says, “Talk to no one. Keep quiet. Okay. I get it.”

 

He is completely taken aback when, at the end of the drive, he is ushered, not into some grim, drab London prison facility, but into what looks like a club for wealthy gentlemen. Perhaps it’s a front, yes? If so, he must remember to give these British more credit the next time – if there is a next time. If this _is_ a facility, it is very, very well-disguised indeed.

He keeps glancing over at the woman, but her face gives nothing away. She hands him over to a man in a suit, who motions for him to follow him down the long, quiet hall. Strange – no guards of any kind.  He looks behind him, and sees that she isn’t following. She puts a finger to her lips – _shhhh_ – and smiles, then turns and walks away.

At the end of the hall, the man opens a door and he is led into a room; they cross the space toward another door, leading to another room.

He enters and the man leaves, closing the door behind him.

“Colonel Zotov.”

A tall man in a midnight-blue pinstriped suit is standing at one of the large windows on one side of the room. For a moment, Zotov is conscious of his clothes: sturdy wool and tweed, but shapeless and generic – nothing like the fine material, cut and construction of that three-piece suit, which lies over the other man’s body like a second skin.

“You are Mycroft Holmes,” Zotov says.

The man turns to face him. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.” He walks toward the centre of the room and motions for Zotov to sit. Tea has, indeed, been laid out on a low table: a teapot, cups, tiny sandwiches, scones, dishes of clotted cream and jam.

Zotov frowns even as he takes a seat across from Mycroft. “What is this?”

“Anthea _did_ tell you that I had asked you to tea, yes?”

“By ` _tea_ ’, I thought she meant ` _interrogation_ ’. At the very least. Especially after she told me about the special room.”

Mycroft chuckles. “Well. I can understand your apprehensions. This is the Diogenes Club – it is a club for extremely unsociable gentlemen. No doubt she instructed you to speak to no one when you arrived. This room –“ and he gestures vaguely toward their quietly opulent surroundings, “is the only one in the entire establishment where any sort of verbal interaction is permitted.”

Zotov grunts in approval. “I wish we had one in Moscow.”

He’s rewarded with a smile from Mycroft. “May I pour you a cup?”

“Please.”

He waits for Mycroft to hand him the cup and saucer. Everything is so proper and civilised, but he’s still waiting for someone to sneak up behind him and land a blow to his head with a truncheon. Maybe there’s something in the tea, but then Mycroft pours himself a cup out of the same teapot and begins to sip and – what _is_ going on here, exactly?

As though he’s read his mind, Mycroft says, “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve asked to meet with you.”

“I’m quite certain it’s not to introduce me to your custom of afternoon tea.” Zotov points to the tray of sandwiches. “May I?"

“By all means.”

Zotov takes four at once; the dainty finger sandwiches look even daintier in those huge hands. He polishes them off rapidly, one after another.

“You and I have a common problem, Colonel. A problem that I have been trying to take care of for months. A problem that you have come to London to fix, at great risk to your personal safety.”

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Zotov says, reaching out for more sandwiches.

“Come now, Colonel. Your master’s association with James Moriarty is no secret to either myself or my government.”

Zotov pauses a moment before putting another sandwich in his mouth. He chews thoughtfully as Mycroft continues.

“Neither is it a secret that he has gravely compromised Karla with his recklessness. So I hope you will do me the courtesy of not denying your purpose for coming here.”

Zotov leans back. “Good sandwiches.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you slice the cucumber so thin?”

“In the interest of full disclosure, Colonel, I should probably tell you that I didn't actually _make_ those sandwiches myself." He picks up one of the sandwiches and studies it closely. "I’m quite certain there is a gadget for it.”

“Remarkable.”

“I am sure we could obtain one for you. A souvenir of your stay in London.”

“I’d rather use it on James Moriarty.” Zotov looks squarely at Mycroft. There is a frankness, an openness about his gaze that Mycroft immediately understands and respects. “Since you’ve been so hospitable, let me tell you this. I have come to your country to find the little shit and to kill him. If you have any objections to that, you must arrest me now. If not, you must get out of my way.”

Mycroft smiles, then reaches under the table. When he withdraws his hand, he’s holding a mobile phone. He hands it to Zotov, who accepts it but with a raised eyebrow. “What’s this for?”

“I have no objections, Colonel Zotov, but neither will I get out of your way. In fact, I would like to help you.”

“Help me?”

“I imagine you have people helping you on the ground, but that won’t be enough. We are in a position to be your … your eyes and ears, to put it plainly.” Mycroft tilts his chin to indicate the mobile phone in Zotov’s massive hand. “All you need to do is to be ready when you receive my call.”

Zotov tosses the phone in the air and catches it deftly with the same hand.

“Why are you doing this? Why would you help me?”

There is a glimmer of hatred in Mycroft’s pleasant smile; it’s something that Zotov can easily recognise and relate to. “Let’s just say he interfered with something that is … most dear to me. Something I would die for. Something I would kill for.”

Zotov studies his face for a while, and then smiles back. “I understand.”

He waves a hand at the food on the table.

“So. Which of these things here are what you call scones?"

 

Karla is staring outside the window in his small office. The weather is as bleak as his mood.  The Council met yesterday, and although everything was cordial on the surface, he could tell from the tight little smiles on the council members’ faces that the knives were being sharpened already.

That august body will meet again in a few weeks’ time; by then, they will have everything they need. It will be a long, humiliating process that will strip away every last shred of dignity from him, and it can only end in yet another gulag: in yet another dark hole filled with piss and shit and vomit.

And then there is the letter.  It arrived yesterday, in a diplomatic pouch, coded in a cipher that the sender knew only Karla and his chosen few could recognise and unravel.

 _George Smiley_ , he thinks. _How I have grossly underestimated you all these years. You use my own daughter against me, but in so doing you offer a lifeline, a way out, for both myself and my Tatiana. A lifeline in the shape of a sword, and if I am to grasp it, I must cut my hands and bleed._

_How cruel your kindness is. And how kind your cruelty._

_And how little time you give me to dwell upon my final choice._

_My enemy. My friend. My tormentor, my saviour. I do not know who you are any more. Perhaps I never did. I thought I knew who you were, that day in Delhi: small man with the beginnings of a belly, sweating in the heat. Just another ambitious civil servant from the West._

_But since then you’ve consistently surprised me. Going left when I expect you to go right, up when I expect you to go down._

_And now this._

Karla leaves the window and moves toward his desk. He sits in his chair and reads the letter all over again, even though he’s already memorised the contents.

_We’ve grown old, George, defending our ideals. Old enough to finally realise that they’re all hollow. Empty promises made to us so that we will toe the official line. Lies that we tell ourselves to justify all the unsavoury, unspeakable things that we do._

He sets the letter down on the desk and reaches for the lighter: the one he’s kept all these years, always within sight.

 _Well, my old friend. It looks like you will be getting this back very soon_.

_I hope you appreciate how well I've taken care of it._

 

Sherlock is sitting in the shadows when John arrives from the clinic after therapy. He waits in silence as John hangs up his coat and shuffles into the kitchen to make tea.

When he comes back into the living room, he nearly drops the steaming mug.

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock, you could turn the lights on. Nearly gave me a heart attack there.” He sets the mug down on the mantel and switches a lamp on. “What on earth are you doing, sitting there in the dark?”

“Sitting here in the dark.”

“Thank you. I meant, what are you doing _while_ you're sitting there in the dark.”

"Then you must try to be more specific next time."

John snorts, half in amusement, half in annoyance. He retrieves the mug and settles into his chair, but he senses that something’s not right. “Sherlock? What's up?”

“You saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“Peter Guillam. At some point in the last few days, you went to see him. You spoke with him about me.”

John has gone very still in his chair. “He told you that?”

 _Oh, John. Your face. Your precious face is so open, your voice so easy to read_. “I deduced as much.”

John sets the mug down carefully on the floor beside his chair.  “Sherlock, let me explain –“

“John,” Sherlock says. “It’s all right. I understand why you did it.”

“Do you? I don’t think you do. Can I just – “

“You felt sorry for me.”

John sighs. “No, I felt … I was concerned. I hated to see you like that. You seemed so very unhappy.”

Sherlock looks at him, completely puzzled. “But why would you care? Why would it matter so much to you?” When the realisation hits him, a kind of light spreads slowly across his face, and he whispers, “ _Oh.”_

John shakes his head vigorously. “Nope. Nope, you don’t get to do that, Sherlock Holmes. I did not see Peter Guillam to tell him to stay away from you for my sake. So you have no right to insinuate –“

Sherlock is at John’s side in a heartbeat, one large hand enveloping John’s smaller one.

“John. That’s not what I’m saying. Far from it.”

John yanks his hand away and springs up from the chair, moving quickly away from Sherlock. “No, you don’t get to do that either, you bloody git. You will not stay because you feel sorry for me.  You march right back out there –“ and he stabs a finger in the air, indicating the door, “and you go and tell him that you want him.”

Sherlock takes the mug from the floor, and puts it back on the mantel. He looks at John's reflection in the mirror on the wall and then says, “It is over, John.”

“What?”

“Peter and I – there’s nothing there, John,” he says quietly. “Not any more.”

“But that’s … How? Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Sherlock returns to his chair, crosses his legs, folds his hands together in his lap.

“It doesn’t – well, of course it bloody well matters, Sherlock. Why? What did he say?”

“He said he was too damaged. He said I shouldn’t wait for him to get fixed.”

“But that’s ridiculous. Being with someone who cares about you -- that’s precisely _how_ you get fixed. Did you tell him –“

“I told him everything he needed to know, and still he was certain. I have to respect that. And I have to accept that I may not be what he needs at this time."

John runs a hand over his face in frustration. “Christ. Are you all right?”

“He said I had missed a secret that lies right before my very eyes.”

John turns away from him, his face twisted into a pained grimace. __

_Damn it all._ _You never should have gone to see Peter. You should have just let things be. You interfering little --  
_

“John.” Sherlock is standing close behind him now. “Was he right? Could he see what I myself have failed to see all this time?” His voice drops to an urgent whisper. “You must tell me the truth, John, because you know only too well that in these matters, I am deaf and blind and completely rudderless. I have no choice but to rely on your guidance.”

“And _that_ has never failed me.”

When John turns around, his eyes are wet.

“ _Sherlock_."

 

The call finally comes two weeks later, at four in the morning, in the middle of one of the coldest nights of the year. Zotov answers the phone, and he hears Mycroft Holmes’ voice.

“Good morning, Colonel. I trust that you are well?”

“Mr. Holmes,” he answers, clearing his throat after. “You have some news for me?”

“Our mutual friend is on his way to Gatwick in a rather ... elaborate disguise. I’ll send you a photograph in a moment, along with his exact whereabouts. But of course, I have no need to warn you that he will probably change into another guise along the way.”

“We’ll find him.”

“Of course, we will keep you updated with whatever information we have on our end. We believe he’s booked an early-morning flight to Malta. I can’t imagine why -- the weather there at this time of year is rather gray and wet. Hardly conducive to rest, relaxation or running for one’s life.”

Zotov is already pulling his trousers on, holding the phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

“I wish you the best of luck, Colonel.”

Zotov grins; he likes this man, despite his too-fancy suits and his officious manner. “And I’ll call you to come and admire my handiwork.”

A chuckle at the other end of the line. “As my brother likes to say, _the frailty of genius is that it needs an audience._ Happy hunting, Colonel.”

Mycroft rings off. A few seconds later, the phone beeps again with one, then two message alerts. Zotov studies the messages, then continues to get dressed. When he’s done, he alerts his men on the ground. They’ll be arriving in ten minutes.

He thinks of giving Karla a quick call or sending a message, but he decides to wait until it’s all over. He'd rather have some real progress to report.

He tucks the phone in his coat pocket and heads out the door.

 _Happy hunting,_ indeed.

 

 


	22. Invincible Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John clarifies a misunderstanding, Mycroft cleans up a problem, Peter accepts a gift, and Karla accepts an offer that he can no longer refuse.

Peter snaps awake at the crack of dawn, and immediately, he knows that he’s not really awake. For one thing, the windows are open and the curtains are billowing in a soft, cold breeze; he’s absolutely certain that he closed the windows before turning in last night. 

For another, Fawn is standing on top of his dressing table.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“It’s time you woke up, but you’ve been sleeping in till noon the last few weeks.”

“I don’t have to be anywhere,” he answers sullenly.

“Don’t you?” In one smooth, gliding motion, she’s off the dresser and onto the floor. She moves silently toward the edge of the bed to stand beside him. “Early retirement, then?” She bends to pat his belly. “Getting started on a little paunch there?”

He tries to brush her hand away, but when he makes contact, he can’t feel anything. It’s different from the last time she came to him, when she had felt so solid, so real. Now it’s as though she’s holding back the warmth and substance of her, to punish him for something.

“You’re pissed off with me.”

She raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

“Why?”

“For someone who says he has nothing in his life, you’re awfully casual about throwing away gifts.”

He props himself up on his arms and frowns up at her. “What are you talking about?”

She starts to move away from the bed, and he reaches out to grasp her hand, but it’s insubstantial, he’s clawing at air. “Wait. Fawn, what are you talking about?"

She hops up onto the window ledge, half-fading in the light of dawn. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t.” He untangles himself from the blankets and shuffles toward the window, but she’s gone.

When he awakes for real, the windows are closed, just as he’d left them.

 

Sherlock is already at work on his laptop when John shuffles downstairs to make tea.

“There’s no milk,” Sherlock says absently.

John sighs. “Never mind. I'll do without today.”   

Sherlock listens to the clatter of cutlery on stoneware, cupboard doors opening and closing. “No beans, either,” he adds.

“No –“

The word is strangled in John’s throat before he can even say it fully. When he emerges from the kitchen, he is clenching and unclenching his fists the way he always does when he’s trying to keep his anger or frustration from spilling out.

“You were supposed to go to the shops two days ago.”

Sherlock looks up. “I was?”

“You were,” he says firmly. “We talked about it. You said that you would, and you didn’t. When I reminded you, you said you would go yesterday instead. And still you didn’t.”

“I’ll go today,” Sherlock says offhandedly, clearly bored with the subject.

“You’ll –“ Another word strangled, and soon John is crossing the room in quick strides, closing the laptop and yanking it away from him. “All right. You and I, we need to have a talk.”

Sherlock’s hands remain poised over the keyboard that is no longer there. He slowly lowers them onto the surface of the table. “I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“No, we were merely talking. Having a talk is different.”

“Different, how?”

John’s shoulders rise and then slump. “Arguing about when you’ll actually go out and do the shopping – that’s talking. Threshing out why you haven’t left the flat to do the shopping, or anything at all, in over a week – or why things have been so tense around here lately -- _that’s_ having a talk.”

Sherlock curls his lips in impatience. “There’s nothing for me to do but go over these cold cases. Why should I leave the flat?”

John drags a chair toward Sherlock and sits down to face him. “Listen. We’ve been tiptoeing around each other these last two weeks. I can’t stand it any more, can you?”

“I haven’t been tiptoeing,” Sherlock mutters.

John refuses to be put off. “All right. Two weeks ago, you told me that you rely on me for guidance in matters of -- sentiment. You remember?”

Sherlock looks away, visibly annoyed. “Of course I remember. There’s nothing wrong with my memory.”

John continues. “I told you that day that I was afraid.  Afraid of losing your friendship. Afraid of being … marginalised in your life.”

“Yes. Utter foolishness, but yes."

“I was unconscious for weeks, Sherlock. And when I woke up, everything seemed … different, somehow. The whole thing with Moriarty had become so complex, so hard to grasp. Even now, I’m still struggling to understand it all.”

“John.” Sherlock’s voice is quiet, his tone as gentle as he can possibly make it. “You were recovering from serious injuries. It’s quite understandable.”

“But you see -- you were different, too.  I’m used to you being preoccupied – with cases, with puzzles, with scientific problems. But this time, there was something else.”

Sherlock shakes his head, frustrated despite his resolve to be patient. “Of course there was something else, John. Whatever else I’ve done before, none of it has ever been equivalent in scale or magnitude to being pitted against the Soviet Union’s spymaster. On top of Moriarty himself, who is quite enough of a handful.”

John shifts in his seat, leaning closer to Sherlock. “No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about … how hopeful you looked whenever your mobile phone rang, or went off with a text alert. How disappointed you were when it wasn’t who you were hoping it would be. How far off your mind would seem to be. And not just your mind, Sherlock. Your heart. You may have thought no one noticed – and honestly, you’re a good actor that way, you keep your feelings under such a tight lid.”

A long silence. “But _you_ did.”

“Yeah, well. I suppose I know you better than most.”

Sherlock leans back in his chair and looks down at his hands. “John, it was never my intention to hurt you.”

A sad smile spreads slowly over John’s face. “Sherlock, you’ve never been in the military. You’ve never known what it’s like to see your mates go off into the field, when you have to stay behind `cause you’re injured. You feel like you’re letting them down, somehow. What if something happens and you aren’t there to help?"

“The life I have here – the work we’ve built over this last year – it matters a great deal to me. It’s given me purpose. Do you fully realise that yet? So whenever you left me in hospital, I felt … useless.  Irrelevant.”

“But John,” Sherlock protests. “I could hardly allow you to come running around with me. You weren’t fully healed yet. Even now, you’re still in recovery.”

“I know that. Right here,” John says, tapping the side of his head. “But here,” and then he puts his hand over his heart, “I felt like you were leaving me behind, somehow. And later, when I confirmed that there was … Peter -- it honestly felt like I’d become a needless appendage.”

Sherlock looks stricken, and John puts out a hand to touch his arm. “Sherlock. _Sherlock_. I’m just being honest here. It’s important. I need to say it, and you need to listen and try to understand what I’m saying.”

“All right.”

John studies him for a moment. “Things have been so quiet around here lately that I’ve had plenty of time by myself to think. About what I felt. Or what I thought I felt. And about what I feel now.

“I was jealous. Yes, it’s funny, isn’t it? But I realise now that I was jealous not in the way that I first thought I was. Not because I … feel about you the way you obviously feel about Peter. But because I felt that I’d been supplanted in your life.”

“Supplanted? But that’s –“

“Yes, it’s ridiculous. I know it’s ridiculous now. But it took me a while, you understand?”

“You are … You are my _only_ friend, John. There is no one on earth who can supplant you.”

John smiles -- that familiar, gentle, patient smile that Sherlock finds so comforting. “I know that now: Peter didn’t take my place. _He simply created his own_.”

The other man nods, but he doesn’t say a word for some time. He merely looks down at his hands; he’s holding them in his lap, palms upward.

“And now that place is empty.”

Sherlock’s mobile phone rings, and he picks it up from where it is lying on the table.

“Yes?” A pause as he listens, and then his eyes widen with surprise. “What? Are you absolutely certain?” Another pause.

“Tell me where.”

He rings off, rises to his feet. “I think you had better come along on this one.”

“Why, who was that? What’s happened?”

“Mycroft.  He has a corpse on his hands. Someone we both know.”

 

Ricki Tarr is standing outside the entrance to the rather seedy hotel. When he sees Sherlock and John, he acts like he doesn’t know them. Instead, he shoots them both a look that says _follow me,_ turns and walks into the lobby -- all stained carpeting and the residual stink of stale cigarette smoke. He leads them to the lifts, presses a button, waits for the doors to open. When they do, he gets in and holds them open to allow the two men to enter, without acknowledging them even once.

When the doors close, he turns to them. “It’s not pretty,” he says with a grim face.

Sherlock shrugs. “Few corpses are.”

The lift lurches to a halt on the eighth floor. “This one’s special,” Ricki replies, holding the lift doors open for them again. “Turn left. 813.”

John glances back at him. “You’re not coming?”

Ricki shrugs. “Seen it already,” he says, just as the doors begin to close.

They turn left as instructed, into a short hall. Anthea is waiting at the end of it, thumbs tapping furiously away on the keys of her smartphone. She gives them the barest of nods as they approach, but doesn’t say a word; she merely tilts her head toward the half-open door of 813.

Sherlock pushes the door open and they both enter the room. Mycroft is standing by the window, speaking quietly to someone on his mobile phone. George Smiley is standing by the bathroom door. When he sees Sherlock, he gives him a weary smile.

“Joining the party, eh?” a gruff voice asks from one corner of the room, and Sherlock and John turn around. It’s a tall, massively built man, with a half-smoked cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth.

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “Arkady Leonov. Also known as Colonel Kirill Zotov, deputy chief of Moscow’s feared Thirteenth Directorate.”

“Sherlock Holmes. Pain in the ass.” Zotov laughs heartily at Sherlock’s affronted expression. “I jest, Mr. Holmes. Well, actually, I don’t. But I mean it in a _nice_ way.”

Sherlock pointedly ignores him, and turns to Smiley. “Mr. Smiley?”

Smiley tilts his head in the direction of the bathroom, and Sherlock and John cross the room to take a look. But Smiley holds out a hand to stop Sherlock.

“Mr. Holmes, I must warn you … the Colonel’s men have been quite … thorough.”

Zotov snorts in amusement. “ _Enthusiastic._ The word you want is _enthusiastic_.”

Sherlock nods, then proceeds to the bathroom, followed closely by John.

The bathtub is partially covered by the half-drawn shower curtain, but the water is dark with blood. One leg is dangling over the edge of the tub. The two men move closer to the tub carefully, as though they’re walking through a minefield. Then Sherlock draws back the curtain.

“Jesus,” John finally manages to say after a few moments.

Sherlock says nothing; he simply pulls the curtain back to its original position. He walks out of the bathroom, and John follows.

Mycroft has ended his telephone conversation and is speaking with Zotov.

“You _let_ him do this,” Sherlock hisses to his brother.

Mycroft ignores the accusing tone. “I did what I felt was warranted by the circumstances.”

“I could have beaten him. Eventually.”

“I don’t think there is anyone in this room who doubts that for a moment, brother. But until you did, there was far too much risk of … collateral damage. I don’t need to remind you of young Mr. Guillam, for example. Or his previous lover.”

Sherlock takes a deep breath, then turns to Smiley. “And what do _you_ think of all this?”

Smiley shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I think Colonel Zotov and I need to go and have a nice quiet chat somewhere.”

Zotov stubs his cigarette out on an ashtray. “Name the place and the time, Mr. Smiley.” He actually means it; he’s not being ironic, although everything that comes out of the man’s mouth sounds as though he is.

Mycroft is already moving toward the door. “Anthea has arranged for the cleanup staff to come. They should be here very soon. I suggest that we all vacate the premises before they arrive.” He’s out the door quickly, followed by Zotov, and then John.

Sherlock turns to Smiley. “Where’s Peter?” he asks quietly.

“He didn’t tell you?” Smiley says, then quickly shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t suppose he would have. Peter has decided to leave the Circus.”

“What?”

Smiley nods. “Hasn’t been formalised yet, and there’s a fairly detailed process to go through but … he tells me that he won’t change his mind.”

Sherlock remains silent, and Smiley heaves a deep sigh. "I'm worried about him, frankly. He's a good lad. He’s always been.”

Another sigh, even deeper. "It's a rare bird we're losing, Mr. Holmes. I don't want him to stay if he doesn't want to. I just want him to be ... " He shrugs, finally, unable to find an appropriate word. "Well. You know."

Sherlock casts his eyes downward; he looks completely defeated.

 

“John,” Mycroft says, stopping John as he is about to get into the lift. “A moment, if you please?” He nods to Anthea – unspoken instruction to take care of Zotov. She nods in response, and the lift doors close.

Mycroft takes John aside. “How is he?”

“Sherlock? He’s …” John pauses to consider his answer for a moment, and then says: “He’s not fine.”

Mycroft looks down at his shoes gloomily. “I had thought as much.”

“You knew, then?” John asks. “About him and Peter? All along?”

“There is very little that my brother can keep from me, and I from him. That’s the main reason for all this … animosity between us.” Mycroft turns his focus on John. “And you?"

“Me? What about me?”

“How are _you_?”

“I’m …” He realises that Mycroft is talking about him in relation to Sherlock. Had he been that transparent all this time? He thinks about his answer carefully; if the Holmes brothers cannot keep things from each other, it’s hardly possible for someone like him to hide anything from them. So he decides that honesty is the best option. “I’m good, Mycroft. I think I’ve arrived at a certain … clarity about where your brother and I stand with each other.”

Mycroft looks relieved – oddly enough, not so much for Sherlock as for John. He confirms this seconds later. “Whatever you may think of me, John, I have grown rather fond of you – in my own fashion. I suppose this is an opportune time to tell you that I respect you as I do few people.” He looks down at his shoes again. “I did not wish to see you hurt.”

John can appreciate just how much effort it must have taken Mycroft to make this admission. “I’m all right, Mycroft. I really am. Thanks for caring.” He glances down the hallway, slightly anxious, to check if Sherlock is on his way out. When there’s no sign of him, he continues. “I’m just concerned about him. I wish things were different.”

Mycroft sighs. “Guillam is too decent. Too – noble. And my brother is too proud. And quite frankly, between the two of them, I don’t know who is the bigger idiot.”

John chuckles. “It’s neck and neck, I think.”

They both laugh, and then Mycroft holds his hand out to John. “Thank you, John.”

They shake hands, but John looks slightly bewildered. “What for?”

“For going where I can’t go. For being what I can’t be.”

“And what’s that?”

A look of regret flickers over Mycroft’s face, but it’s gone before John can even register it.

“My brother’s friend.”

 

They converge outside the hotel entrance just as two laundry vans pull up to the pavement. They’re not really laundry vans, of course.

“George?” Mycroft begins. “I think you and the Colonel have a great deal to discuss.”

“Of course.” Smiley turns to Zotov. “Colonel?”

“Mr. Smiley.” They head off together, where Ricki Tarr is waiting.

“Sherlock, John. Can we drop you off anywhere?”

John glances at Sherlock, decides that he’s not in the mood. “We’ll find a cab, Mycroft. Besides, _someone_ –“ and he casts a glance at Sherlock, “has to drop by the supermarket to pick up some essentials."

Sherlock scowls at him.

“Very well,” Mycroft says, suppressing a smile. “Good day.”

He begins to walk toward the idling Jaguar, but Sherlock’s voice stops him.

“Mycroft.”

He turns around. “Yes?” he asks, clearly ready for another confrontation.

Sherlock comes up very close to him, his stance almost threatening, even though he is an inch or two shorter than his older brother.

“Don’t think for one second that I don’t know the real reason why you allowed Zotov to do this.”

Mycroft replies in that long-suffering voice that he always uses in these situations: “Indeed? And what _is_ the real reason, brother dear? Do tell.”

It happens very quickly, and it’s strained and embarrassing and awkward, but Sherlock pulls his brother close in an embrace. The blood all but drains out of Mycroft's face. Neither of them seems to know what to do with his long arms, nor remember where his head should go. But after much fumbling, they are still, Mycroft’s hand buried in his brother’s curls.

When they part, they both automatically clear their throats and straighten up their clothes, mumbling incomprehensibly at each other. Then, they turn around and walk briskly in separate directions, Mycroft to his waiting car, Sherlock toward John.

John smiles at Mycroft’s retreating figure, then hurries to catch up with Sherlock.

“Well, that was nice,” he says. “Very nice, indeed.”

Sherlock quickly snaps at him. “You would be a great deal more helpful to me, John, if you reminded me of those _essentials_ that you say I need to pick up.”

 

“I wrote to him,” Smiley says to Zotov in the car.

“To whom?” Zotov asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“Karla, of course.” He keeps his eyes fixed on the passing scenery outside the car window. “I told him what we knew. And what I thought he should do about it.”

Zotov eyes him warily. “You think you were giving him a way out. But you know that you could have endangered his life by doing this, yes?”

Smiley’s expression is neutral. “He could have half a chance, or none.”

Zotov leans back in the seat, spreading his long, chunky legs out. He studies Smiley’s lined, careworn face, and he finally understands.

“He is your obsession. And you, his.”

Smiley turns to look at Zotov, but remains silent.

“You have been chasing each other’s tails for more than twenty years. Pushing pawns on a chessboard that spans the globe.  And now that you finally have him in checkmate – you do this -- thing.” Zotov shakes his head, both in disbelief and admiration. “You are a strange man, George Smiley.”

Smiley looks away again. “Do you think he will accept it? My proposal?”

Zotov grunts. “Something tells me that you would not have written to him at all, had you not been certain of the outcome."

 

Smiley’s sleep is restless, troubled. In his dreams, he keeps seeing Ann: the glint of sunlight in her hair in the middle of a crowd, the hem of her skirt trailing as she rounds a corner. She’s always just a little out of reach, and when he calls her name, she doesn’t stop for him. It’s not long before he’s breathless, sweat beading on his forehead. He follows her down a succession of streets, her laughter urging him on, and he can never quite catch up.

Then he turns yet another corner, and he sees her. With a man: younger than her, tall, broad-shouldered, well-dressed. He offers her his arm, and she takes it, beaming up at him.  They coo at each other, share a private joke, giggle, kiss.

Smiley trails a few steps behind, but she turns around and tells him sternly: _Stop following me, George._

 _But you’re my wife_ , he wants to say, but the last word comes out as _life_.

 _No, I’m not. The Circus is your life. Go back to it_.

He stops. _Ann_ , he says, and it comes out like a whine, and he hates himself.

_Go back to your boys, George. Sooner or later, they all end up like you. Dead, one way or another._

He wakes up, or thinks he wakes up, and he’s broken out into a cold sweat.

Then he sees a familiar shadow in one corner of the room.

“Fawn?”

She glides forward in that aerodynamic way of hers, and hops up to crouch at the foot of the bed.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

She tilts her head to one side and he can see that she’s frowning.

“You’re unhappy about something. And you’ve come to me.”

She nods.

“Am I the cause, my dear? Or am I to fix it?”

The frown eases a bit when he asks the second question. “So. I’m to fix it. But what is it? Will you tell me?”

 _You already know_.

Smiley sighs.

She gets off the bed and stands next to him. Without a word, she bends and kisses him on the forehead.

“I miss having you around, Fawn,” he says, in a tone that’s both complaining and sad. “You were the only one at the Circus who could make a decent cup of tea.”

She smiles, and then walks away, fading into the darkness.

 

When he opens his eyes for real, it’s well past 7am. He sits up slowly, joints aching, and takes a moment to gradually regain his bearings.

Then he touches his forehead, and smiles.

He puts on a pair of tatty bedroom slippers and goes to the bathroom, uses the toilet, washes his hands and face. When he’s done, he slips on a thick, heavy toweling robe and heads downstairs to the kitchen.

He puts some water on to boil. Bread, eggs, butter on the counter. When the water boils, he makes himself a mug of tea.

He’s about to fire up the stove when he hears a noise in the garden. He sets the mug down on the kitchen table, walks to the back door and peers through the glass panel.

He opens the door and shuffles out, drawing his robe closer around himself.

Peter is on his knees in the cyclamen patch, his nose red from the cold. He's managed to root out all the dead, scraggly stems and roots; they lie in a small heap to his left. To his right, there is a cluster of new cyclamen in small pots. He is busy replanting them in the soil bed. He doesn't look up when Smiley approaches.

"You never did get around to putting parsnips in," he observes.

"No, I never did."

Peter pushes soil around the base of one of the plants. "I hate parsnips."

Smiley chuckles. "So do I." Then, after a beat: “Isn’t that soil practically frozen?”

Peter shrugs. “It’s not too bad.” He flips the trowel in his hand. “Good tools.” Satisfied with the work he's done on the plant, he turns and takes another small pot to replant its contents. "I was thinking, George. I've been resting for nearly a month now."

"Yes."

"The shoulder is much better. And so is ... everything else. Or at least, I think it’s getting there. Slowly."

"Mmm."

Peter gently loosens the root ball with his finger and carefully removes the plant from the pot. "Maybe I should, you know. Come back to work. Nothing too strenuous or too complicated at first.  Something with a desk and a computer."

Smiley’s heart lifts, but he doesn’t answer at once.

"Are you sure you're ready? There's no rush, you know."

"I broke into your house to plant cyclamen in the dead of winter, George. Surely that tells you how bored I am."

This draws another chuckle from Smiley.

Peter continues working quietly for a while, and then he asks: "Do you ever regret it, George?"

"Regret what, Peter?"

Peter shrugs. "Everything. Mistakes you’ve made. Things you've failed at. People you’ve lost."

Smiley sighs. “Regret is not the exclusive province of our trade, Peter. Everyone regrets something. Even a schoolboy of six can have regrets. Most people just keep going. “

“As you have.” He doesn’t say it, but Smiley knows Peter is talking about Ann.

Smiley looks down at the heap of dead cyclamen. “I suppose that’s all I know how to do.”

 _You already know_ , Fawn had said.

 _Sooner or later, they all end up like you,_ Ann told him in the dream _. Dead, one way or another._

 _Not this one, my darling. Not if I can help it_.

He turns to Peter again. “I’m going to make some tea,” he says, his tone a little brighter now. “Would you like some?”

“Yes, please.”

Smiley heads back inside, closes the door. He doesn’t make tea; instead, he picks up the phone in the kitchen and dials a number, all the while keeping his eyes on Peter through the window.

“Mr. Holmes? Yes. I’m terribly sorry to trouble you on a weekend but … I need your help. No, no, nothing serious. I just … well, I need a hand with some gardening. I’m having trouble with the old back, you see, and I was wondering if … Well, I could, but nobody will come out on a weekend, and it really can’t wait.

“But if it’s inconvenient, I’ll understand. Oh, you will? That’s awfully good of you. Yes, now would be good. Yes, thank you.

“Oh, and Mr. Holmes? I wouldn’t wear a suit, if I were you.”

He hangs up and stares at Peter through the glass for a long time. Then he remembers that he needs to make him a cup of tea.

 

Karla finally receives the message from Zotov, along with a photograph of what was left in the bathtub. In the message is a detailed plan, a series of steps that he needs to take within the next few days – beginning today.

The plan is clean and meticulous, and there is a certain logic and symmetry – an _elegance_ \-- to its structure that pleases him.

It surprises him that George Smiley is capable of this kind of elegance.

But then again, it really doesn’t.

The walls have already started to close in on him. Last week, a small army of state accountants was sent to audit the Thirteenth Directorate’s books. The trainees in the camp were advised that they would be transferred to other facilities closer to Moscow. _Temporarily_ , they were told – the first stage before _indefinitely_ , which would inevitably lead to _permanently_.

Karla has already been summoned once more to appear before the Council, in about a week’s time. This time, the language of the document is much colder, much less friendly. It’s an indication of what awaits him. He knows this because he has signed hundreds – thousands -- of documents like this before. Most of their recipients ended up in labour camps; the really lucky ones ended up dead.

The walk-bridge at the Berlin Wall. He hadn’t expected this.

 _Elegant_.

He stands and walks slowly to the window. His right trouser pocket is heavy with the weight of the lighter. He looks out one last time at what he has built, and smiles sadly.

 _We have a saying, George. “Vsyak kulik svoyo boloto khvalit” — every sandpiper praises his own swamp_.

_We like to imagine that the worlds we create are new. But really, all we do is build decay out of decay. Self-delusion is human nature._

_I will see you on that bridge soon, my friend._

 

There is a knock on Smiley’s door, and Peter, who has just washed his hands in the kitchen, goes to answer it.                                 

He stands in the doorway in shock for a few moments.  It’s the same shock that’s written all over Sherlock’s face.

“Peter,” Sherlock finally says, breaking the silence.

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock tries to look behind him to see if Smiley is coming to the door as well, although somehow, he already knows that he isn’t. “Mr. Smiley asked me to come.” He glances down at his outfit: worn jeans, a white t-shirt, a thick black jumper, all topped with his usual coat. “He said he needed some help in the garden.”

Peter steps aside. “Come in.”

Sherlock enters and proceeds to the living room, and Peter closes the door behind him.

“I never would have imagined that you knew anything about gardening,” he says, by way of small talk.

“I suppose I’ve learnt enough from previous cases to get by,” Sherlock answers, removing his coat and laying it on the back of the sofa. He doesn’t explain any further, but looks around the room, past the doors to the kitchen and what appears to be a study. “Where’s Mr. Smiley?” he asks, although he is quite certain now that the answer doesn’t matter.

“He got called away,” Peter replies, and as soon as he says the words, he sees Smiley’s design and deception as plainly as if it had been spelt out for him. “By Oliver Lacon. Something about budgetary allocations for the incoming fiscal year. Said he’d be out all day.” The words, which made perfect sense when Smiley spoke them about an hour ago, now sound so patently false and ridiculous that Peter starts to laugh -- nervously at first, and then, as the reality of Smiley’s machinations sinks in, more freely and heartily.

Sherlock smiles – the deception was apparent to him from the moment Peter answered the door – and soon, he, too, is laughing. He sits on the back of the couch and catches his breath, as Peter wipes tears of laughter from his eyes.

“Gardening. He asked you to help with the _gardening_.”

“He said he was having trouble with his back.”

“Don’t tell me. He asked you to wear jeans.”

“Well, no. But he advised me against wearing a suit.”

This only provokes more peals of laughter from both men. They laugh as they have not done in months, unrestrained, joyful, helpless; they laugh until their throats hurt, until they're exhausted. 

When they’re done laughing, they look at each other for a long time, without saying a word.

It's Peter who closes the distance between them.

“Is that offer still open?” he asks softly.

Sherlock looks up at him. “Offer?”

“Weeks ago, you told me that all you could offer me was something true. You asked me if that was good enough.” He takes a deep breath. “I gave you a foolish answer, believing it was the best for both of us. But now, I want to tell you… It is better than good. It is exactly what I need. It is _all_ that I need.” He holds out his hand, and his voice is so soft now that it’s barely above a whisper. “Please tell me that it’s not too late for me to accept it.”

Sherlock looks down at Peter’s hand. It’s almost involuntary, the way his own hand moves in response; a part of his mind observes what’s happening with great interest, as though it’s detached from the rest of him. His fingers touch Peter’s and Peter wastes no time in grasping them. He pulls Sherlock close, and the contact is electric: it’s as intense as that first kiss what now seems like a lifetime ago, but as comforting and familiar as coming home.

They lose themselves in each other. It’s clumsy, they fumble with buttons and zippers, they laugh, they trip over their trousers and each other. They make it to one of Smiley’s guest bedrooms somehow. They fall into bed, they kiss, they taste, they linger. Their hunger and need boil over, but there is infinite tenderness, too: slow brush of fingers on skin, moments when their eyes meet in the half-light, with the curtains drawn, and express everything for which words are inadequate -- everything for which there are no words.

They murmur each other’s name like a promise.

 

Smiley has been waiting in his car, some distance from his house. He sees Sherlock arrive, and Peter let him in. _Good lad_ , he cheers Peter on in his mind.

He glances at his wristwatch and waits.

When Sherlock doesn’t emerge from the house after about fifteen minutes, he decides that today – a Saturday -- would be a really good time to iron out all the final details for West Berlin, and his appointment with an old friend.

He drives away and heads for the Circus.

 

Less than a week later, he and Peter are in a café in West Berlin’s Turkish quarter. Between the two of them, they’ve plowed through six cups of overly sweet coffee. Smiley is lost in his own thoughts, and Peter tries not to interrupt them too much.

Everything is in place: the cameras, the waiting cars, the Circus men in their anonymous clothes watching the bridge from every possible angle.  But as the twilight deepens outside the café windows, Peter feels a twin sense of dread and anticipation. He glances over at Smiley; he knows this is the night he has been waiting for, for the better part of two decades. Everything that has happened in the last few years – Jim Prideaux’s betrayal, Alleline’s ascent, Control’s decline and death, Bill Haydon’s unmasking, even Lady Ann’s faithlessness – all of these have led up to this night, in this city, just a few blocks from the bridge.

Peter hopes fervently that Karla will cross that bridge tonight. For Smiley’s sake, but also for his own. It will not bring Fawn or Richard back, nor soften the sting of Haydon's treachery, but it will help him to make sense of it all -- to understand why certain sacrifices are necessary at all.

Smiley’s mobile phone rings; it’s the signal from Mendel. Peter fishes out his wallet, leaves a large note under his cup to cover the bill; Smiley is already halfway through the door.

Darkness has fallen completely now. They walk side-by-side in silence, in the bitter cold, past buildings and shops and cars. Peter will remember this brief journey of theirs in the years ahead like one, very long, rather surreal dream. They get to one end of the walkway somehow, where Ricki has positioned the waiting car in such a way as to not arouse the suspicion of the East German guards in the sentry tower, with their high-powered binoculars.

“This could be him,” Mendel says, urgently-whispered words coming at them through the shared frequency.

In the distance, a small figure emerges from the fog. Peter hands Smiley a pair of binoculars. Long moments tick by, as the figure, dressed as a common labourer, makes its way down the walkway.

Peter watches Smiley: the coiled tension in that ageing body and face has somehow erased decades from both, and he can see the man that Smiley once was -- younger, sharper, colder, more focused.

A formidable and worthy enemy.

Finally, Smiley says the word that everyone is waiting for.

“Yes.”

It’s him.

 

The last time that Peter dreams of Fawn, he is staring at the photograph.

And then it isn’t a photograph anymore, it is real -- it is _her_. But the rooftop isn’t the rooftop of that building in Hongkong; it is the rooftop of the Circus, under a gray London sky.

“You came back,” she says.

“So did you.”

She nods. “Just for a little while. Just to say a proper goodbye.”

Peter frowns. “Goodbye? Again?”

“Not again. Just this once.”

Peter chews on his bottom lip. “So I won’t dream about you again? Not ever?”

“Well, you might. But it will just be the residue. Old memories.”

“You mean, all this time that I’ve been dreaming about you – you’ve really been here?”

She smiles at him, then, a genuine smile: the smile of 14-year-old Rei Eristavi, waving to that roaring crowd at Dinamo Stadium after her routine on the beam.

“What do you think?”

He feels utterly bereft. “But why? Why can’t you stay?”

The sun breaks out from behind a thick bank of clouds, and suddenly one corner of the rooftop is illuminated with sunshine. She reaches out to touch his face, and the warmth of her hand feels incredibly real.

“Peter. That’s not the way it goes.” She starts to walk away, heading for the sunlit corner. “Besides, you have it now.”

“What? I have what?”

“What I told you to find. Do you remember?”

“Something good. Something lasting. Something _true_.”

She glances over her shoulder at him; already she’s fading in the light. “You’ll be fine, Peter. I’m not worried about you. Not any more.”

“Fawn.”

“Be happy, Peter.” She’s almost completely gone now. “And I don't want to see you again for a long time. Not until you’re good and ready.”

“Fawn. _Fawn_.”

There’s no reply.

The muffled sound of his own crying wakes him up, but already he’s being held close, rocked gently.

“It’s all right, Peter,” Sherlock whispers to him, his lips pressed to the soft, golden hair. “You’re safe. I’m right here.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title, is, of course, from Albert Camus: "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."
> 
> Whew! I thought we would never get here. A huge thank you to everyone who has been following this story, and for all of your support, your kudos, comments and suggestions for improvement. I hope I haven't disappointed any of you, and that Peter got the happy ending most of you think he deserved.
> 
> And again, huge thanks to the creators of all these wonderful characters. I love them all and if I've taken liberties with them, it's only because of that love. I do not profit from any of this.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfic, so apologies for all shortcomings. And they are many, including: never having been to London, and therefore not knowing what the hell I am talking about geographically, climatologically, etc.; slippages in UK English usage; and a foggy memory of both the ACD and the le Carré canons. The list is likely to grow longer as I go along.
> 
> Disclaimer: None of these wonderful characters are mine.


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